Church of Beasts
by FreyjaBee
Summary: Zeref is at his best when he's being his worst. Angel is the spark to his magnesium and Ultear likes the way he burns. (Set in the same universe/on the same timeline as Stars in the Sky) Rated M. Zeref x Angel, Zeref x Ultear, ZerefUltearAngel. Drama, angst, crime, romance, psychological fuckery. See IMPORTANT warnings inside.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings:** Rated M for violence, mental illness, substance abuse, suicidal things, language, sexual content and **MENTION of under age sexual content.**

**_Church of Beasts_**

* * *

Forever and ever  
A night in search of a day

* * *

Everyone overreacted, in Zeref's opinion. Not about any one thing, but all things, always. Crying. Screaming. Peering into a dark-dark like their dark was the only dark.

Zeref met the absurd, the shock and the pain, with a stoicism that unsettled most everyone he'd ever known.

He could watch his father blow through his entire pay cheque in one sitting and listen to his mother scream about it and it didn't make him sad or helpless and small, it was like his chest was just one big sound chamber, it echoed and echoed and echoed, but it faded without ever leaving a mark.

He could watch Erik's dog get hit by a car and there was just an empty pit where he thought _something_ should be.

He watched UP without getting wet-eyed when Natsu would bawl.

People called him strange and not because he swerved to crush a snake's head with his bike tire when he was six-years-old just to see what would happen, but because he did _nothing _afterwards, straight-faced_. _If he'd crowed excitedly, it would have been easier, because people understood better when the darkness was riddled with light.

In Grade Seven, his teacher, Mister Norman, had a massive coronary. He vomited up all of his butter chicken on his desk, slumped in it and died. Other children screamed, some cried, some even laughed because it was grade seven and they didn't know what else to do.

Zeref just sat in the chaos, feeling nothing except slightly nauseated by the smell.

"There's something wrong with him," his father had confided that evening. "He's not right."

"Because he didn't cry like the other kids?" his mother asked. "Because you know, everyone is different."

"Not different like he is. He needs help."

"He needs his family not to call him a freak."

"Maybe he should know," his father returned.

That turned into one of the biggest fights he could remember. Natsu's favourite plate was broken and he started to cry. Zeref took him up to his room and put noise-cancelling headphones on him while they played retro video games and he listened to the loud conversation below.

His mother put up a good fight but she lost in the end because that's what she _always _did.

Zeref saw a therapist the week following Mister Norman's death and learned words like dissociative, eremitic, and apathetic. Apathy was a sickness, he was told. And empathy was its cure.

But the truth was, it wasn't about light and dark. It was about grey. Endless seas of grey that stretched on and on. He trained like he'd train for an exam. _I lost my Dad today, Zeref, _and the correct answer was, _I'm sorry to hear that, Doctor Raquel. _And when people said happy stuff, too, like, _Your cousin is pregnant, Zeref,_ he was supposed to say, _Congratulations!_ Exclamation included. They gave him drugs. They did not make him enthusiastic, exuberant or earnest. Maybe if they had, his medicated brain would have liked them. But no, they took the dead inside and they smothered its rotting stench like Borax would. They made him fuzzy and tired and too drab.

So he filled the prescription and buried a pill in his mother's bird of paradise plant every morning. One day, it was going to die, and he'd have to explain why a bunch of yellow and blue pills were degrading in clumpy dirt and that would be tedious. Like acting _okay_, and _alright_ would be. But he did not like those pills. And he did not like curious glances, taken-aback-stares when he looked on straight-faced when some tragedy would strike and people thought he should be upset but he wasn't.

So he learned to act.

And he learned to act well, imitating Natsu's injuries when he got them. Broken finger? Yeah. Mushed nose. Black eye. Cut calf. And then he imitated his response so he could get it _just right._ It worked so well, sometimes, even he believed it.

* * *

His phone kept autocorrecting to ducking. He'd never once meant ducking in his life. He erased the words and wrote them out again. He had an amazing capacity for patience. He'd been at it for five minutes, though, and had burned through the majority of his cigarette without smoking a bit of it. Eventually, his phone just rang, Ultear was less patient and was sick of Zeref's … popping up and disappearing.

"You could have just called."

"I'm not supposed to use my cellphone in the hospital."

"And you care so much about the rules."

Some, anyway.

She asked, "Was it the guy?" She'd put him on the trail of a mugger the night Natsu got jumped in the street, someone bragging that he'd stolen a kid's wallet and cell phone.

"No." Zeref examined the red cracks between his knuckles, the swollen bruises, the blues and the blacks. "The wallet belonged to some skinny kid. Have you heard anything else?"

"You know I haven't or I would have said something."

She wouldn't have kept it from him. He _knew _that. He just needed to hear it. "Keep looking."

"What are you going to do when you find them, Zeref?"

His shield cracked and the apathy he spent _so long _smoothing came roaring up to the surface and he could do nothing to tame it. "Kill them." He would. He would kill them all.

"You know you can't smoke in the hospital, right?"

Zeref hit the _End _button and put his phone back in his pocket. A girl was watching him. Her hair was so blonde it was white in its high ponytail, her eyes were rimmed with black liner and her scrubs were undone to her grey tank top. Her chest was covered in tattoos. Ugly creatures. Some of them had halos. Some were screaming in agony.

"Yeah."

She came further into the room and closed the door. She put her hip against a towel cart and smiled. "You're Natsu's brother, right?"

"How would you know that?"

"I was his nurse when he first came in. Angel." She put out her hand. Zeref stared at her chipped red nail polish. She took her hand away. "What are you guys doing back? He didn't get into another fight, did he?"

"He's getting his cast off."

She beamed. "So then why are you skulking in the supply closet?"

He liked the sharp curve of her lipsticked mouth. "I might ask you the same."

She sucked on her bottom lip, still smiling. "Can you keep a secret?"

He had them in spades. No one knew about the sickness in his head. No one knew about the gun under his bed. No one knew he thought of being dead. "It's one of the things I'm good at."

She came towards him. Zeref waited to see what she'd do. She smelled like lavender as she reached behind him and jiggled a panel loose on the wall. Behind it was a white paper bag. She opened it up. Pills. Lots and lots of pills in plastic bags.

"You're a bad nurse."

"Do you know anyone that's looking to buy?"

It felt like someone had grabbed his chest and torn a huge gap in it, and it was the echoing chamber once again. He did not like the pills the doctors prescribed, but he liked these. "Maybe a couple."

"I'm done work now," she said. "Your brother should be done soon, too."

Zeref took his keys from his pocket.


	2. Chapter 2

We're used to the night; we take more than we're able

* * *

Coffee's bitter scent coiled in Zeref's nose. He breathed it in deep, deep, deep before he took a drink. It warmed up his guts and made him feel a shade more human. Like he could possibly deal with his mother sitting across from him.

She looked very presentable in a white button-down shirt and a blazer, a pencil skirt on her hips, nice, reasonable shoes on her feet. Business-like and professional.

"New job?"

"Dispatch," she said.

"When did you start?"

"A couple days ago."

So it would be at least three weeks before she got her first pay.

She touched his cheek gently and he thought he should feel bad for being so cynical. Her fingers smelled like St Ives hand cream and it reminded him of his childhood when she'd brush his hair back from his forehead and tell him how handsome he was. Then she'd make him and Natsu blueberry pancakes. "I don't get to see you anymore. I_ miss _you."

"I miss you, too." He thought. There was a longing in his chest when he looked at her and whether that was because she represented a time in his life when things were simple or because she was his mother and she had a way of making things look like they could have definition and meaning, he wasn't sure.

"You should bring Natsu to the house for dinner."

"Dad doesn't want me there."

"Of course he does."

He didn't. "I make him uncomfortable."

Her fingers moved from his cheek into his hair. "Baby, don't say stuff like that."

The truth. He reached for a feeling he'd seen others wear but couldn't quite emulate in the mirror. He thought it should sort of feel like shame and sadness mixed together. Hurt. Betrayal. "Just tell me how much money you need."

She studied him carefully and Zeref knew he'd gotten his expression wrong. "Have you been taking your medication?"

What was it about mothers? How could they see through your most glamourous bullshit?

"Baby…" she hedged. "You need to take your pills. They're important."

"Just tell me how much money you need."

Her hand fell away; her eyes got hard. The kind of hard they'd been when Zeref's dad told him to get out of the house and she stood by and did nothing. "Our property tax is coming out. And the phone bill is coming due."

"A grand?"

"That should be fine."

He gave her two so she wouldn't call him again so soon.

* * *

Zeref's bedroom door opened and Angel looked in. She wore a green tube dress and tall black socks, despite the cold. Behind her was Ultear, who dressed much more reasonably in a pair of black jeans and a loose-fitting black shirt. She looked at Zeref in the same way she _always _looked at Zeref. Things always went sideways for him when he let her look at him like that. Doctor Raquel would call them co-dependants. Unhealthy. She worshipped him. Made him feel powerful. Made him want to do all manner of things he shouldn't really want to do, not if he was being _level_ and _normal. _

The way he felt under her watchful eye, though. Fuck. He could burn the fucking world down. He could set himself on fire. He could fuck everything and it wouldn't even matter.

Ultear closed the door while Angel came to the bed. She was just as bad as Ultear, bringing Perks and telling him it was okay to want them. It was okay to stare at his ceiling for days, thinking about chasing a bigger, better high. Binging left him feeling like a scarecrow, but the space in between? When he wasn't a man and he wasn't a husk? He would die for that. _Was _dying for that.

Angel had a little round glass mirror covered in white lines. She had a glass tube. Once she sat on the bed, one leg crossed beneath her, she put the end in her nose and snorted one line. She handed it to Zeref and though he thought, _this is a bad idea, _he snorted the other. Ultear draped over his shoulder and snorted the last. Usually, she was his rock. She was fucking crazy, yeah, but she was also always rooted in reality. With Angel there, something was _different _with her_._ She felt dangerous and Zeref was fucking addicted to it.

_That's a bad way._

Bad, bad, bad.

It made him want to be dangerous, too.

Angel ran her fingers through the side of his hair, just over his ear, like his mother had. Her nails were short and round and dug into his scalp. "What are you thinking about, baby?" The same pet names, too, like they had the same deep-seated history. Maybe they did. She'd been hanging around for two weeks but she had a way of making it feel like it'd been forever. He didn't hate it. Not really. It added to his façade. Normal guys had fucked up girls like Angel breathing life into their bad decisions.

The Perks grabbed hold of him and he laughed. "Crazy fucking shit." Dark. Dark stuff. Stuff he only ever thought about when the sun set.

Angel glowed. Ultear looked like she was an addict staring down a hit of heroin, daring it to fuck with her. She wanted to be fucked with. He touched her leg and she jolted a little like she'd been stung by a bee. She wet her lips nervously.

"What kind of crazy shit?" Angel leaned into him. Her breath smelled like vodka. It wasn't good to mix. Not ever. Angel wasn't the kind of girl that paid attention to stuff like that, though.

"You ever think you're too fucking crazy for this world?" he asked loosely. "You ever just look at everyone around you and think they just don't fucking get it?"

Angel leaned back, arms behind her, chest pushed out. Her dress was riding low and she wasn't in a bra. "I get it."

"She doesn't get it," Ultear contradicted. No one could understand him, she meant. She wanted to, though.

Zeref bet she didn't.

He reached under his mattress and felt the heavy weight of steel. Ultear's eyes got slightly wider. Angel's were still closed; her head was still tilted back.

Zeref knocked out the wheel of the gun and pulled out all of the bullets. He picked one out of the pile again and put it in the chamber. He flicked it back in and sent it spinning, so he had no idea where the bullet ended up. "This is what I think about." He put the snout to his head. He'd spent his entire life making bad decisions, waiting for someone to tell him to stop. Usually, they did. These girls in this room, though?

Ultear's chest rose and fell nervously, her eyes showed too much of the white. But she loved a good game of chicken. A challenge. And what was the biggest challenge but to Fate herself?

Zeref's guts tingled with nerves, all the blood rushed to his head and he felt so, so high. So unbelievably fucking _high_. He settled the hammer down and pulled the trigger.

The gun clicked.

Ultear's breath sobbed out. Zeref gave her the gun. She lifted her hand to take it but couldn't quite make her shaking fingers wrap around the handgrip.

Angel snatched it away from her and put it against her temple. She pulled the trigger without any hesitation. Zeref jumped when he heard the click. Angel laughed and it sounded as high as he felt.

Ultear glowered at them both, annoyed at being shown up. "This is a fucking stupid game."

"Then don't play." Angel handed the gun back to Zeref. Ultear snatched it out of his hand and pressed it against her temple. Her eyes squeezed so, so tight, and then she pulled the trigger.

Another click.

_This is the time,_ Zeref thought and knew it deep in his bones. When he put that gun to his head and he pulled the trigger, the bullet would be waiting in that chamber and he would be splattered against his bedroom wall, all over Ultear, who sat so close beside him, and Angel. No more pretending. No more _apathy._ No more anything.

He closed his eyes and thought of serenity.

Natsu shattered it; it was his gift. He came bursting into the apartment and though there was a door between them, Zeref felt like he'd been caught in the most intimate act. He thumbed the hammer back into place and engaged the safety. He put the gun beneath his bed and pulled away from Ultear, Angel. He had an erection he had to tuck into the belt of his pants. Finally, he was ready.

When he came out into the living room, Natsu was shucking off his jacket. "Hey."

"Are you hungry?" Zeref asked.

"Yeah." Natsu was always hungry.

"Sit down. I'll make us something." There was KD in the cupboard.

He went through the motions, putting a pot on the stove, set to high because he was impatient, opening the box and adding the noodles before the water was finished boiling. Then he stood there, feeling his temple, where the gun had pressed in, and wondering why, when he'd never shown anyone that before, he'd shown Angel and Ultear his favourite game of Russian Roulette.

The best times to play were when he was fresh off a seven-day binge, lying in pain on his floor. He pulled the trigger every time and the gun had never gone off. He figured either he was really fucking lucky or God hated him.

He split the KD into four bowls and handed them out to everyone. Then he turned on the TV and watched a reboot of the old Batman while they ate. Angel picked at her bowl. Natsu ended up finishing it, and Zeref's, too, because he felt too high to eat much. Ultear finished her bowl and then slumped on the couch like it'd been great effort.

The Joker was laughing on TV and Angel was climbing into Zeref's lap. There was another Perk in her hand. She pulled down his lip with her middle finger and slid the pill into his mouth with her index. Zeref swallowed it down with a beer on the coffee table. It was cold. Did he get it? He didn't remember.

Angel rubbed her hands over his middle and kept moving her hips and his thoughts kept blanking. He forgot Natsu and Ultear were there until Angel bit him and he hissed and Ultear huffed exaggeratedly. There was no mistaking what she thought of the whole ordeal.

She lit a bong and passed it to Natsu. He smoked and then he began to clean. Zeref saw it all on the periphery. He knew he should get up and help but Angel was pulling on his shirt, getting it over his head and she was pulling up the skirt of her dress, making him touch her through her damp underwear, and his head was a blank mess.

Hours passed like minutes.

Natsu's phone dinged out a One Up sound from Super Mario Bros, bringing Zeref back to reality. His brother was shrugging into his leather jacket.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

Which only meant one thing. "Law School's back in town?"

"Don't call her that."

There were worse things he could call her, that he _wanted _to call her. Girls like Law School Lucy didn't understand people like the Dragneels. They didn't have rusting out trucks and mothers begging them for money, they didn't have Perks scattered over their coffee table and bong water smelling up their sink when they cleaned their artillery. They were good girls, and good girls fucked with people like them. They gave them a taste of something really fucking good and then they always, _always _took it away.

Conveying that seemed like a lot of effort. Zeref only said, "Be careful, Natsu."

"Yeah." The door closed behind him. Ultear locked it and came to Zeref with her shirt off. her bra was midnight blue. She threw it to the couch and got behind Angel. She worked on getting Zeref's pants open. Angel turned and glared at her. "What do you think you're doing?"

Ultear looked like she'd been slapped.

It was tempting to sit back and let the calamity unfold, but that's not what a normal person would do. "Ultear's alright."

Those were the right words for Angel, but the wrong ones for Ultear. She went from looking shocked to looking mad. People were complex. It was a good thing he knew Ultear.

He grabbed her forearm before she could sneak away and put her hand on his cock. He closed eyes, bent his back, used the right sigh. She was his again. This time, Angel didn't complain when Ultear took him out of his pants and sucked him off. She stood, got rid of her clothes, and settled back down again.

"I need to go to the hospital to get more Perks for us."

"Later." Zeref had found a condom in his wallet. He put it on and Ultear guided him into Angel. She was good at sharing. Angel was not. She let Ultear touch her and even seemed to enjoy it, reaching behind herself and grabbing Ultear by the back of the head, pulling her in so she could rim her while she got fucked, but there was a selfishness in Angel that Zeref was sure was going to cause him problems later down the road.

She sulked when he pulled out of her and told Ultear to get on the couch on her knees and told Angel to get beneath her. He thought she liked it, though, when he grabbed her hair and made her lick Ultear's clit while he fucked her.

Zeref made a case study of them, giving Ultear more attention than he gave Angel, then switching, and seeing how they both responded. It wasn't very often he got this close to jealousy.

* * *

Zeref's house was full of strangers. It was like that. People came and went all the time. Sometimes, they were looking for something to get them through the night, a pill, some bud, sometimes, they just wanted to sit in the smoke of cigarettes and dope and pretend that they were part of _this_. What this was, Zeref didn't know. People just liked being around him, he supposed. He didn't know why. They looked at him in fascination or they looked at him in disgust, but they always looked at him.

It made him feel powerful.

Someone put on some Zeppelin and he slouched back into the ratty couch, letting the guitars pick him up and drag him higher and higher and higher until he felt like he was going to fall and burst open like a rotten watermelon. Look at all the poison in your head. Look at it bleed out when you're dead.

"We should go to the hospital now before I'm too fucked up to get the pills," Angel said.

"He can't drive," Ultear responded.

Angel looked directly at Zeref. "Can you?"

_Can I?_

"You'll get a DUI, Zeref. Don't."

He needed his license.

Angel said, "What about Natsu?"

"What _about _Natsu?" Ultear asked.

"He can take me."

"To steal drugs from your work?" Ultear snorted and looked at Zeref, expecting him to say no because he didn't fuck around when it came to Natsu. Natsu was the better of them. He wasn't rotten. He could _do _this. Be normal.

Zeref liked the way Ultear was incredulous and he liked the way Angel looked victorious, though, when he shrugged. It made him laugh his dead laugh and it made Ultear bristle. She crossed her arms and turned her back on Zeref, choosing instead to talk to a girl with pink hair whose name Zeref didn't know.

Natsu came home; Zeref didn't know what time it was. It was dark out. He took in the party stoically.

"There he is," Angel said in a sticky-sweet voice.

Zeref organized his thoughts. "Have you been drinking?"

"Me? No," Natsu said hesitantly. "Why?"

"Because he wants you to drive me to the hospital," Angel said.

Natsu looked her over as if hunting for injury. Of course, he wouldn't find any. "Why?"

"Because I asked." Angel slipped from Zeref's lap and grabbed up her backpack beside the couch. "What do you say, Natsu?"

He was still looking at Zeref, searching for an explanation and part of Zeref, the reasonable Zeref, told himself that this was a bad idea. He was setting his brother up and he shouldn't. It wasn't what a good older brother would do. But then Natsu said, "I guess," and it was suddenly out of his hands.

When Natsu left with Angel, Ultear when with them. Someone asked why and Zeref honestly didn't have an answer, though he tried to think of what Doctor Raquel would say if he asked her what she thought. She might say something about competition and jealousy, or maybe something about them being friends. He would then tell her about the mean glint in Angel's eye as Ultear tongued her and she'd get uncomfortable for a split second before burying that under professionalism.

He considered perhaps _he _should be a therapist. He would listen to peoples dirties with a smooth expression, thinking things like, _are they more fucked up than me? _and congratulating himself when he finally found someone he thought _was._

Distantly, Zeref heard yelling. He dismissed it at first. People yelled in this part of town all the time.

But then he saw the red and blue pulse of police lights and something told him something was very, very wrong. Suddenly, he knew with certainty that it was Natsu and he felt something sink in his guts. Anger.


	3. Chapter 3

Welcome to my dark side  
It's gonna be a long night

* * *

Zeref used to think doctors were only for when you had a sore throat, a fever, or a broken bone. Doctors were for anti-depressants and for recommendations to psychiatrists.

Then he got kicked out of his parents and moved into the closed-up movie store, which was questionably legal—it was zoned commercially, not residentially, but he needed a place to stay and Invel said it was good, so Zeref took it—and talked to all the people his mom told him not to, and discovered heroin. He loved heroin. He loved heroin like a fish loved water.

It was Gildarts Clive that pulled him out of a snowy ditch when he'd stumbled in one November night five years ago, and it was Gildarts Clive that told him doctors were good for other things, too. Methadone. Methadone for when Zeref decided things had come far enough. He had issues, yeah, but he wasn't that skid, the one that walked around town toothless, babbling nonsense, selling his brother's china for a fix and robbing his old friends.

So he went to the doctor and sat in the chair, twitching and picking and just always in motion, hankering for the fix he'd denied himself.

The doctor didn't really say much, and maybe that was why Zeref decided he didn't like him. He looked at Zeref over his glasses as he scribbled out a script and told him to go to the pharmacy. There, a surly old pharmacist dispensed some methadone into a plastic cup, mixed with Tang, and watched him choke it all back.

"Same time tomorrow," he was told. "And if you miss three days in a row, you need to see your doctor again and get a new script."

Zeref went back until he didn't shoot heroin anymore, and then he had his methadone cut back and back and back. Sometimes he wanted to claw out his eyes and scream and itch his skin away until there was nothing left, and sometimes, if he was distracted, it was okay. He couldn't really predict the day. He didn't really know much during that time, just that he'd found the first thing he'd ever loved and it was heroin and he couldn't have it anymore.

That's how he felt coming down off Angel's Perks. He sat in the old pharmacy, jerking his leg up and down, scaring the little old lady that sat in the chair of the blood pressure machine staring at him like he'd grown two heads. He wanted to rip hers off.

He closed his eyes and thought of Natsu sitting in the cell of Magnolia's constabulary, waiting for Jude Heartfilia to pardon him for assault against the three men that Natsu claimed would have jumped him, Angel and Ultear in the parking lot behind their building on their way back from the hospital; he thought of Jude Heartfilia's smug face in Magnolia's police station, and he thought about how he absolutely believed it was no accident that those men were waiting for Natsu. He thought about how, as the fight happened, he was so fucking stoned, he didn't hear it until he saw the lights on the cruiser, and he thought about the blood on Natsu's face. Ultear's bloody pipe, and Angel's clean hands.

Fucking. Angel.

Zeref heard his name and leapt to attention so fast, he knocked over his neighbour's cane. She shrank back as though he was going to hit her with it. He made himself _breathe_, stoop, pick it up, and hand it off with one of his practiced smiles. It didn't quite fit on his mouth, but she accepted it, like everyone who was not his mother did, and Zeref was able to give her the cane and move on.

The Pharmacist waited for him inside a plain cubicle. It was the exact same surly man that weened him off heroin years before.

"Zeref." He had a piece of paper in hand with Zeref's script on it but Zeref knew he was recognized, and the pharmacist wasn't at all surprised to see him back again. "How have you been?"

Zeref didn't respond; he didn't come here for small talk. The pharmacist waddled back to his dispensary.

Methadone hadn't changed. It still came in a plastic cup filled with Tang. Zeref shot it all back in one go, nearly choking, and slammed the cup down like he was at a bar. The juice spread through his stomach and almost immediately, his nerves stopped feeling like stripped and frayed wire.

He didn't say thank you to the pharmacist, there'd be a chance tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, until his dose was decreased to nothing and he was deemed cured.

Angel was waiting for him outside his apartment when he finally made it home. It was too cold for a short white skirt and a tank top that showed off her smooth stomach when she stretched, but under her fur-lined coat, that's just what she wore.

"Hi, baby."

Zeref wasn't angry anymore, he was numb, but he walked right past her like he was, emulating how his parents acted when they were furious with each other.; he'd had twenty-four years of practice. He was an excellent actor.

"Zeref, wait."

A snowplough had come through the parking lot and he could see the spot where Natsu's blood stained the ground red, all the way down to the concrete.

He walked with more authority.

"Zeref, hang _on_." Angel grabbed his hand. She didn't have the same survival instincts as the old lady in the pharmacy.

Zeref brought up short and forced his lungs to expand until they hurt. Then he struggled to organize his thoughts. First step was removing his hand from Angel's. "Don't touch me. Don't come near me." He wished he hadn't shown her his gun. He didn't like that she knew that about him. He wanted to pull it out of her head and stomp the memory dead.

Angel stepped in front of him so he had to look at her. "What did I do?"

"Brought Perks into my house. Took my brother to the hospital so you could steal more of your drugs. Dropped a fucking pill bottle with a name on it so shitty Jude Heartfilia could lord it over his head." _Break it off with Lucy or I'll encourage those men you attacked to press charges on _top_ of theft of a controlled substance with intent to sell. _There was no way what he was doing was legal, but Zeref didn't know how to squash him and neither did Natsu.

"I didn't _mean _to drop the bottle, Zeref, obviously."

"Irrelevant. Natsu was fucking _arrested_."

"Ultear's right about one thing, I guess, you're fucking prickly when Natsu's involved. He's a big boy; if he wants to help—"

"No." Zeref didn't realize he was in her face until fear flitted across her eyes, lightning fast.

She tucked it away, though, and fired back. "You know, you willingly took my drugs and fucking _thanked _me for them, which says to me that I didn't fuck up your life any more than you wanted it fucked. You're just misplacing the blame."

Funny, Doctor Raquel would say the same thing. Zeref pushed Angel out of the way. She stumbled but recovered. "Zeref!"

"Don't come here anymore." He jammed his key into the lock and then slammed the door in her face. It would have been more impactful if the stupid bedsheet he was using as a curtain didn't flutter down so he had to look at her as he locked the door again but that was just kind of how his life went.

She gave him the finger and disappeared back from whatever Hellmouth she crawled from.

Except for Natsu's snoring, the apartment was silent. Zeref sat at the table and glared at a hole in the wall he didn't remember last week. Someone must have put their fist through it. Hell, it might have been him. It'd need to be fixed.

Natsu woke up sometime around eleven. His face was fucked up. There was a lump on the side of his head and his eye was black and swollen. He fell onto the couch and stared at the TV, though it was off. Zeref went into the kitchen and started making pancakes. Blueberry ones. He'd arrange the blueberries in some to make them grin like jack-o'-lanterns like he used to when they still lived at their parents and he was babysitting. Sometimes, he thought he was dead inside, but sometimes, he'd feel okay and he liked to see Natsu smile.

He checked on him again when he had the batter prepared. Natsu was still in the same position, staring at the same spot, wearing an ugly expression Zeref wasn't used to seeing on his face. "What are you thinking about?"

Natsu looked up and it was like this was the first time he noticed Zeref was there. He announced, "The last time you made me blueberry pancakes."

It used to happen every Saturday morning, right up until Natsu was fifteen. Breakfast, then they'd hang out. Sometimes, they'd go to the movies, sometimes, they'd take their bikes ripping through the quarry. When Natsu got a little older, Zeref would take him to the mall. He'd leave him in the candy store, where Ultear worked, and sneak out with Ultear to smoke a joint. When they'd come back in, Natsu would have a bag full of candy he'd pay Ultear for and they'd spend the rest of the afternoon rotting out their teeth.

The last time Zeref made him pancakes, though, was the day he'd been kicked out of his parents' house.

They'd come up the front steps after their movie, Zeref saw the mail laying on the porch, scattered by an incoming storm, and a hydro bill that said _Final Notice_, and suddenly, apathy had stepped aside for rage. He couldn't even pinpoint where it all came from. It was just there.

Rage was addicting in the same way heroin was. In between long, dizzy bouts of feeling _nothing,_ it brought him to life, and he would always ride that wave. He couldn't not.

Natsu shifted on the couch and Zeref pulled away from the memory. "They're your favourite."

Natsu chewed his cheek and nodded. "Yeah."

The butter was burning. Zeref ducked back into the kitchen and started again with fresh butter. He didn't stop until he had a towering stack of pancakes for Natsu and two for himself because he didn't feel hungry. Addiction did that to you. He just knew he had to feed his head.

He didn't eat immediately, choosing instead to watch Natsu cut into his pancakes, chew, swallow, thinking about Jude Heartfilia, a bigtime lawyer, and Lucy Heartfilia, his Star of a daughter. Law School Lucy. His pride and joy. He'd never let her get scuffed with gutter trash. He'd even hire thugs to kick the fuck out of that gutter trash to make his point clear. He wouldn't stop, either, not until he was _understood._

_And you gave him the ammunition he needed to fill Natsu full of holes, asking him to take Angel._

Natsu swallowed a lump of pancakes. "What?"

It was easy to speak when you weren't bogged down by little worries like, _what if he's mad at me? _Zeref said, "I fucked up. I asked you to take Angel to the hospital and I knew what she was doing. I wasn't thinking straight, though. If I hadn't…"

"Those guys still would have been waiting."

They would have, yeah, but that wasn't the _point. _"I can handle trash like that. What I don't like is fucking Jude Heartfilia _threatening _you with a drug charge. What I don't like is you getting involved. It wasn't supposed to happen." Zeref leaned forward and planted his elbows on his knees, his chin on his clutched fists, steeling himself for what he needed to do next. It felt like laying out a mousetrap and inching his fingers towards the mechanism. "I've been thinking. Maybe you should call Mom."

Natsu screwed up his face. "Why the hell would I call Mom?"

"Ask her if you can move back home. Get out of here for a little bit. Let things cool down."

"Is Dad still there?"

"I think so."

"Then no."

"Natsu—"

Natsu cut him off. "Are you kicking me out?"

He _should_. That's what a responsible, unselfish brother would do. A brother that didn't need Natsu to show him how to be human. "No."

"Then drop it."

Zeref rubbed his palms on his jeans, trying to centre himself _in this room_. Trying to think things through. Natsu wouldn't leave. Things needed to change, though. _And it starts with you, Zeref_, Doctor Raquel said. "If you're going to stay here then I'll try to go legit."

"Legit?" Natsu repeated.

He'd keep going to the methadone clinic, he meant, though he wouldn't say it. "I'll try to get a job. A good one. Get this shit out of the house." He grabbed a stray pipe and dropped it dispassionately to the table. "I don't want to give anyone any reason to come down on you. Not for this."

Natsu smiled briefly. It went away again when Zeref asked, "What are you going to do?"

"About _what_?"

"I know Heartfilia told you to stop seeing Lucy."

Natsu immediately got defensive. "And how the fuck would you know that?"

"Because I asked him what it was going to take to get this charge put away."

"And he told you?"

"Seemed kind of proud to, actually." Puffing up his chest and explaining about _class _and _his girl_ and _nobodies like your brother_ _sullying the Heartfilia name_.

"Natsu." Zeref waited until Natsu was looking at him. His glower was fierce and his thoughts were easily discerned. "Don't think you can go behind his back and keep seeing her. It's all or nothing for guys like him. Either you tell him to fuck his hat and get slapped with this charge or you do what he says."

Natsu's shoulders fell. "What do you think I should do?"

Gut Jude Heartfilia and leave his entrails scattered through the street. Beat his head in until it was pulp and smear it all over his fancy Lincoln. Shove pills in his mouth until he puked them all back up then slit his throat and rub his face in the mess.

Zeref sifted through the violence for the right words. "I want you to go to school. I want you to get a good job. I want you to have a house. A good one, that you buy _legally_."

"So you think I should cut ties with her."

"Yeah. I do."

"Because she'll always be Law School Lucy."

Basically. "Yeah."

Natsu stood, abandoning his pancakes.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

Probably to do exactly what Jude Heartfilia didn't _want _him to do. Zeref opened his mouth to tell Natsu to be smart but no words came out. Natsu wasn't going to listen; he loved Lucy. He'd bowl on ahead until a collision forced him to stop, as he'd done for his entire life. Zeref was afraid that this time the crash would be fatal.

The door opened and he was gone, and so was the moment. Zeref picked at his drippy pancake, thinking of ways to make this better. It started with him, he thought and eventually, when he gave up trying to eat, he started cleaning, Top to bottom. He threw out bongs and pipes and glass tubes and a Ziploc bag full of pot someone would shank him for. Half of an eight ball he'd rather put up his nose. Everything.

He opened the windows and sprayed air freshener and could almost pretend that the tar from years of cigarettes and joints hadn't soaked into the drywall and made everything perpetually stink.

Sometime around five, someone knocked on the door. He twitched aside the bedsheet and saw blonde and waffled between opening the door and letting the sheet fall back again, though Lucy absolutely knew he'd seen her.

Several long seconds passed in which she looked at him and he looked at her, wondering what it was about her that made getting beaten in the streets _worth _it to Natsu. She was pretty, he guessed, and she went to a good school, so she was probably smart. She was so squeaky clean, though. She made him uncomfortable.

He opened the door. "Lucy."

The very tip of her nose was red and she was swaddled in a thick wool scarf that probably cost more than Zeref paid Invel a month for rent. "Hi, Zeref. Can I see Natsu?"

"No."

Lucy looked like he'd slapped her. "I just want to make sure he's okay. I heard he was in another fight and," she checked both ways down the street before whispering, "arrested," like that was the filthiest word she could think of.

"He's not here," Zeref clarified.

"Where did he go?"

The responsible thing to do would be to tell her he didn't know. Or to tell her to stay the fuck away. It just seemed like a lot of fucking effort. "Natsu has two places he goes when he needs to think."

"The park and Kardia," Lucy supplied. She looked up at the sky; it was dark already and the stars were diamonds sewn into a velvet tapestry. She came to the same conclusion he had: Natsu would be at the park, staring up at dust clouds and suns millions of years dead. "Thanks, Zeref."

He watched her until he could see her no longer. An Audi SUV rolled by and he shared a look with Jellal Fernandez, Lucy Heartfilia's first cousin. _Trouble _his expression said, trouble was coming the Dragneels' way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Important A/N:** I updated the warnings to include mention of underage sexual content in this chapter (maybe in the future, too, I haven't decided yet). I haven't added anything very graphic, nor will there be, but here it is, your heads up. Keep that in mind moving forward

* * *

A thousand nights once succoured me  
In the shadow of misanthropy

* * *

There was a girl that worked at the clinic on Tuesdays and Fridays. Mavis, her boss called her when he was scolding her for asking too many questions or for getting a prescription wrong. Every time it came for him to check her work, her eyes would go wide and glisten and her lip would pop out.

The first time she brought Zeref's methadone in its paper cup and waited for him to sign his name on the witness list, she smiled and something strange happened; his palms didn't burn so much and he didn't feel like ripping his fucking skin off. The change of state was so startling, he struggled to recreate the reaction. It only ever worked when she was nearby.

He started looking forward to his pharmacy visits.

Weeks slipped by. He talked to her a little more each time and even tried regurgitating a joke to make her laugh. It worked. He didn't feel like he normally did when he duped people into thinking he was one of them, though. He actually _felt _like he could be the same.

Barely.

He tried to have a joke ready every time he went and she tried to be the one up at the counter.

Then one evening, Zeref ran into her outside the grocery store, after the sun had set and the sky was heavy with snow clouds. A few flakes drifted through the air. Zeref asked her only, "Did you want to go to the river?" and Mavis nodded. He didn't know why people just did that sometimes, trailed after like lemmings. He understood only that it gave him a kind of power over them.

When he looked in Mavis' eyes, he saw she was a good person who believed in other good people doing good things for good reasons. And he was one of them, in her eyes. Even though she worked at a methadone dispensary. Even though she knew he was a patient. The only thing she saw was that he was there trying to get off whatever he'd been hooked on and she was there for that.

She shimmied up onto the railing between the river and the green space and kicked her feet slowly. She could slip and fall and crack her head open on the rocks at the bottom of the waterfall. She could slide beneath the ice flow and not even be found in the spring. Zeref couldn't tell if that made him anxious or not. It was _supposed _to.

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. It was the only bit of vice he'd allowed himself in weeks. "Smoke?"

"No." She shook her head. The wind blew by, brisk and full of snowflakes. Some stuck to her golden lashes, some stuck in her long, golden hair. She leaned back almost over the water and said, "I hope it really, really snows. I like the winter."

He did, too, in a way. He could hide his face behind sunglasses and tuck into hoods. He could stay inside and turn people away from his front stoop. He could get by without too much temptation. Warm weather always made him crave all the things he shouldn't. He didn't know how to convey any of that, though.

Zeref finished his cigarette and started another before Mavis spoke again. "You're not like the other people that come to the clinic, you know."

"I'm not like anyone," he said absently, thinking about the negative space in his chest, his gun and the surety that one day, he was going to burn himself to the ground just because.

She looked at him and he again caught glimpse of a girl that wanted to save him. The lie: that he could be. The bigger lie: he _wanted_ to be. He told it to himself over and over again so it almost seemed like a real thing.

They met every day after that, whether it was snowing or not. Sometimes, it was so cold, Zeref's fingers would be numb and he couldn't feel his cigarette anymore. Mavis started hooking her feet between the railings and inviting him to stand close to her. She was always cold like Zeref and Winter were sucking all the heat out of her.

She kissed him the third time they stood like that and it felt like he was brushing by something good. He'd always destroyed good things. Pushed them away because he didn't understand them, so they could fall, fall, fall to the rocks at the bottom of the river, get swept up by the cold water and disappear forever.

It didn't _have _to be that way, though, just because he had a hard time connecting on an emotional level. Feeling a thing was just as simple as _believing _you felt a thing. That was the philosophy he'd lived by for his entire life, anyway. So what if it didn't fool his mom? It was good enough to fool a girl like Mavis, who believed in Good People. Who seemingly believed in him.

"Will you walk me to school tomorrow?" Mavis asked when they finally broke apart and it was time to leave.

"How about I drive you?" he suggested. It was a long way to walk

"Alright." She gave him the address to a little house on the east side of Magnolia, by the river. It was nice. A light blue bungalow with a two-car driveway and fresh paint on its exterior. Real, and _clean _drapes in the windows. A happy golden retriever sitting in the windowsill. It was the kind of place Zeref had never lived in but thought about sometimes.

Mavis was waiting on the porch in a dark green skirt, a white button-up shirt. The patch over her left breast said _SABERS. _The word niggled at him while he drove. He didn't know why, though, until three minutes later when Mavis told him, "You should have gone left at the lights, not straight." Towards the high school. Not the college. It took a few moments after that, but eventually, he looked at her turquoise eyes and her round cheeks. At all of her. All of her in her entirety, her narrow hips and her flat chest. What he'd originally thought of as _slight. _Her innocent smile. His thoughts all jumbled up together. "How old are you?"

She hesitated and he knew it was bad.

"Mavis. How fucking old are you?"

"I'm turning sixteen soon," she said sheepishly.

She was fifteen_. Fifteen. _She couldn't even get her license. He rubbed her kiss from his lips. It wasn't enough. "What the fuck?"

"What does it matter?"

"It fucking _matters._" It mattered a whole lot.

"Not to me, it doesn't."

"To everyone else in the goddamn world." The real horror. "I _kissed _you."

"I _wanted_ you to."

Who cared if she wanted him to or not? Not the law. Not him. "Fuck. Why the _fuck_ didn't you say something?"

Her cheeks flushed and her eyes watered up. "I thought you knew."

"How would I possibly _know_?" He felt like he needed to go home and sear every thought from his head that ever contained _Mavis._

"Because I'm doing my community service at the pharmacy!"

Of course, she was. He cranked the wheel, pulling them into the high school's very furthest parking lot, away from everyone else. With any luck, no one would spot him. "Get out."

"Can't we talk about this?"

"Get _out_."

"Zeref—"

He dropped his sheep's clothes and stopped pretending to be like the rest of the world. "Get. Out."

Fear darted across her face. She pushed open the door and all but fell out. Her hair was tangled by the wind and her feet slipped in the snow. He could only see her back but he knew she was crying, she kept lifting her hand to wipe her cheeks. Zeref squeezed the wheel hard, making his knuckles crescent moons. "Fuck," he said again and dropped the transmission into drive.

* * *

He stopped going to the clinic because he didn't want to see her. The next closest one was two towns over, two and a half hours of driving. So he tried to go cold turkey and lay in his bathtub, shaking and sweating and vomiting.

Natsu wasn't home. For days and days. Zeref texted him when he thought to. Sometimes, Natsu responded. He was at Erik's. He was with Ultear. Both sounded terrible but when Zeref asked him to come home, Natsu ignored him. Truth be told, Zeref wasn't keen to have his brother see him as he was, anyway. So he told Natsu to use condoms and then returned to his suffering.

It got so bad, Zeref thought he was going to die. He _wanted _to die. He filled up the bathtub and put on his first record, Led Zeppelin, and listened to _I Can't Quit You Baby _while he stared at the cracks in the tile. They ran like the veins of his body, five jagged lines converging into one large one.

What if he _couldn't_ quit, he wondered? What if he just wandered around husked the fuck out, dead air inside his head, pretending to be okay? What if his transmission just kept slipping gears and nothing ever caught? What if. What if. What if.

He couldn't go on like that. He hated the way he shivered when the water was scalding hot and sweated when it got cold. He hated the fuddled feeling in his head. The one that confused him all the time. That tricked him into thinking Mavis was something other than what she was. A light. _Hope. _He hated that when he lay in the dark and he was on the edge of sleep, she crept into his thoughts, unbidden, even after he knew the truth.

He fumbled for his pants. For the knife in his pocket. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub, soaking the floor and his discarded clothes. His heart was a jackhammer in his chest. Where was the calm he felt when he held his gun and put it to his temple? Gone. All gone. Because when he put just one bullet inside and spun the cylinder, there was only a one in six chance he was landing on the bullet.

Knives were forever.

_No more pretending_, Zeref thought, pressing it into his skin. It split it like butter and blood bubbled up. Movies made you think it was a bright red fresh out of the body but in reality, it was impossibly dark.

_No more wanting. No more nothing. _No more _anything_.

Something loud buzzed, startling him so badly, the knife slipped, splitting his skin more. But shallow. Blood dropped in the tub, a plume that disintegrated but left behind a red the colour of roses.

Another buzz. Zeref looked over the edge of the tub. His phone had fallen out of his pocket. It walked across the tiles, warbling in the water. It was Erik. He'd called twice and had sent Zeref several texts. The latest was a picture of Natsu on Erik's couch with Brandish and Ultear, sucking on a stubby pipe. His eyes were like two panes of glass, unfocused and shiny and large.

_You know I'm on probation. I can't have this shit in here. I'm throwing them out and he's too fucked up to walk home, _was the next text Erik sent.

"Fuck me." Zeref threw his phone back down on his pants and got moving. His arm was still bleeding heavily. He dried and packed it with toilet paper, bits sticking to his skin, and wrapped it all up with scotch tape. He wore a sweater to hide the mess but was already concocting a believable story. He doubted anyone would ask, though. Natsu was fucked up in his own head and Zeref didn't really have anyone else.

* * *

Erik lived in a section of Magnolia the locals had dubbed 'The Patch'. It was all government housing, meaning Erik's looked just like the rest, a townhouse attached to a line of them. His porch was a concrete stairway with a slab at the top, his door was steel, scratched down through the paint. Over the years, it had been graffitied it with numerous things, crude art, crude sayings, each more unsavoury than the last.

Zeref knocked over a stick man with dull black eyes and a moment later, the door opened; Erik was there, eyes red-rimmed, mouth flat and serious. Voices poured into the night, people laughing and talking, music. Smoke chased them. Heroin, cigarette, weed. The monster in Zeref's chest reared up and lapped at it hungrily. Black spots appeared in front of his eyes and he thought he was going to pass out. He grabbed the door frame and held it tightly, breathing shallowly, thinking, _it's okay._ _It's okay, _and when that didn't work,_ it's not okay and that's okay._

"He's here," said Erik and hiked his thumb over his shoulder, to the couch. Natsu was flat on his back. Ultear was pulling his boxers up for him. Her eyes flitted up briefly, met Zeref's, and dropped again. Shame. Guilt. Zeref knew those expressions like he knew his face in the mirror. He'd practiced them religiously. He didn't _care_. He didn't care about anything except the spaced-out expression on Natsu's face. He'd do anything to feel half as dazed as Natsu looked.

Zeref took another shallow breath and wheezed out the proper words. "Thanks. And thanks for calling."

Natsu tilted his head back slowly. Recognition but not understanding flitted across his face when their eyes met. Someone had hit him not very long ago. His lip was busted and a faded brown bruise ringed his eye.

"Who tuned him up?"

"He wouldn't say," Erik replied.

Which meant it was another one of Heartfilia's ploys. How many beatings could Natsu take for Lucy? He was so stubborn. It was admirable, really, but it wasn't like one day, Jude was going to roll over and think, _Natsu's good enough for my daughter today_. Tragedy waited at the end of this route.

Someone lit another bong and the smoke hazed out the entire room. Zeref kept his shoes on inside the house, though he dragged in snow. He needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

"Hey, Zeref," Ultear mumbled from the couch. She was smooshed between Natsu and the backrest and couldn't seem to get herself out.

"Move please." He wasn't there for niceties.

Ultear struggled until Zeref grabbed her bicep and helped her up. Brandish was just as dexterous, sliding off the couch and onto the floor. Natsu shivered as soon as their body heat was gone. His eyes fluttered, then rolled into the back of his head and he fell into the shakes Zeref knew all too well. He tapped Natsu's cheek to keep him in the present. "We're going home. Come on."

He just laid there, quivering. Zeref crouched and put his arm around Natsu's back and got his feet under him. His pants slid down. Zeref caught them before it was disastrous. "Hold them up."

Natsu obeyed his orders without complaint.

Erik was still by the door when they got there. Zeref said, "Get his shoes."

"Here." Erik put them down in front of Natsu's feet and joked with his other guests at Natsu's expense. Zeref couldn't focus on what he said, though, he was split between wicked withdrawal and watching that Natsu didn't fall on his face as he forced his feet into his boots. He put Natsu's coat on for him when they were finally ready and ripped open the door. The Dakota looked like a godsend, running in the driveway.

Zeref put Natsu in the passenger's seat and undid the window in case of accidents. Natsu tried to do it back up once they got going. Zeref reached over and swatted his hands away.

"You'll want it down."

"It's cold," Natsu muttered.

"Well, _I'll _want it down."

His point was proven not thirty seconds later when Natsu leaned his head out and retched.

He wasn't any more cognizant by the time they got home. Zeref brought him into the bathroom and put him down on the ground beside the toilet, then checked under the sink. There was a Naloxone kit in a black fabric bag. He pulled it out, broke the seal and put it on the edge of the bathtub.

The bathroom was too small for them both to fit in comfortably, but Natsu needed to be watched and there was no fucking way he was going to make it in here from his room if he needed to be sick, so Zeref returned to the bathtub. The bottom was still damp. He slouched in it and sighed, looking at his brother's shivering form. He wasn't supposed to be the one smoking heroin in government housing with people that didn't give any fucks about him. He was the better of them.

Zeref's phone was going off. He checked it. It was his mother, and she wanted to meet tomorrow morning. _911_, she texted, and it must have been because it was two in the morning; she never messaged him so late.

Natsu lifted himself up and retched noisily into the toilet. Zeref set his alarm for six. It was going to be a long night.


	5. Chapter 5

Mother's come, she is the night

* * *

The restaurant stunk in the best way. Coffee and bacon. It was a welcomed reprieve from the bile Zeref had been smelling all the night before. He tucked his nose in his chipped mug and felt the clouds at least stir in his foggy mind. He still didn't feel smart enough to outwit his mother, though. two hours of interrupted sleep just wouldn't do it.

The bell over the door jingled and in walked the lady of the hour. She looked a lot like Natsu in a lot of ways. Both of them had dark eyes and high cheekbones, both of them shared a similar complexion of skin. And both of them looked like they come out on the losing end of a brawl. Her hair was tangled and her shirt was only half tucked into a pair of jeans. The Dragneels had never been very organized but it seemed like they were taking more than their share of hits recently.

She spotted him immediately and didn't have a smile in reserve as she usually did. The ominous feeling he'd experienced last night only grew. When she came to sit across from him, he noticed a slight discolouration on her jawline. He focused in on it, cool all over, not really shocked, not really outraged. He was _always _cool all over. At least it was something he could depend on.

"What happened?"

Her hand fluttered up around the bruise and dropped again without response. This was the easy way. He didn't have to search out how to feel if he didn't have the truth.

A waitress came over with coffee. Zeref watched his mother pour three generous helpings of sugar into her cup and four milks. He waited for her to take a sip, then he waited for her to speak.

"You look tired," she said only after she was a quarter way through her cup. Her voice was hoarse from screaming. How many plates were broken? Computers, TVs, tables, for that matter? All of it? Was the whole fucking house just one giant fucking warzone? Sometimes, he missed the din of their fights. He missed being the _object _of their fights. They were arguing over how fucked up he was, _yeah_, but at least they weren't ignoring him until he could do something for them.

That revelation sat on his chest like a heavy brick. "I've been up all night," Zeref squeezed out. "So why don't you cut the bullshit and tell me what was a nine-one-one?"

Her mouth went tight and flint flickered in her eyes. Then she set down her cup, seemingly resigned. "We're going to lose the house."

"Of course." That was _also _something he could depend on_. _"Taxes again?"

"Mortgage. We're behind."

"He's gambling again," Zeref stated. He used to think him and his old man had nothing in common. How disappointing to find root in his addiction.

"I have pamphlets." She opened her purse and took out three booklets on gambling and breaking the habit. The pages were bent and stained. She'd been carrying them around for days, obviously. Maybe weeks. Fuck. Maybe since the last time he'd really gone off the rails.

_So where are my pamphlets_? asked an unfamiliar voice. _Are there ones in her bag for drugs, too? _There weren't. He knew it. His mother was predictable in that way. Self-absorbed. She probably didn't notice his twitching, his sharp cheekbones or his slightly green pallor because it didn't really affect her day-to-day.

Zeref was suddenly angry. "I can't keep doing this, Mom."

"I know, baby. I'm sorry." Her eyes filled with tears. Zeref watched them stream down her face, feeling a little bit dead and wondering what he should do. How he should move his face. Should he reach for her? He did, seething in anger and everything, because that's what people _did_, stretching his hand across the table and weaving his fingers with hers. It was awkward and insincere all around, but she clutched him and cried harder and he knew he was trapped. He _was _going to try to get her that money. He was. And there was one way he knew would always work.

* * *

Zeref didn't have Angel's number, he'd deleted it from his phone in an attempt to step back, but he never had to look very hard for her. He just followed the line of glassy-eyed men she always seemed to leave behind.

Tonight, that led him to a party at one Sting Eucliffe's house. He couldn't get out of the house without alerting Natsu, though, and Natsu wouldn't let him leave without him. So Natsu sat in the passenger's seat and Zeref drove down a country laneway, past walking revellers all funneling towards a party everyone would feel listless at but would pretend was fun because culture _demanded _it.

Natsu was quite possibly the party's first victim, looking out the passenger's window, lifeless. Because of that, he didn't see Lucy walking down the driver's side of the road with everyone else, beside a man with red hair. Zeref determined he wasn't going to tell him, either. It was difficult to say how in over his head Natsu was with everything that was going on in his life, mostly because Zeref didn't ask. He didn't know _how _to. He knew one thing, though. The best way to shake an addiction was to stay the fuck away from it. Lucy Heartfilia was Natsu's addiction, and tonight, he'd be brushing up against it if he wasn't careful.

"You need to stay out of the house," Zeref said as he turned the truck off the main road and onto a dirt one that was deserted. Being off the beaten path would make a hasty getaway possible. Through the swaying trees, Zeref spied a fire. It was just starting to sputter in the backyard, by the expansive forest. There were a hundred bodies around it, at least. Plenty of people to distract his brother.

"Why?"

"Because if the cops raid, that's the first place they're going to look," Zeref lied. Girls like Lucy wouldn't spend a ton of time partying out in the cold by the smoky fire when she could be inside, dancing and drinking with the rest of the girls just like her.

Natsu nodded like Zeref was a sage and opened his door, eager to meld in with the nightlife. Zeref took longer, getting a cigarette out, and shotgunning a beer, convincing himself that _this _was better than doing lines or popping pills. _You're here for a purpose. Just find Angel. Talk to Angel. Make a deal with Angel. Get the fuck out. Without Angel._

He got another beer, this one to sip, and got to it. Cool air wrapped him up and crept through his jacket. Natsu was gone, blended in with the crowd by the fire. Zeref hovered around the edge, watching people laugh and scream joyfully. Falsely. Tonight, everyone was just like him, pretending.

Someone just steps away was smoking a joint and that wasn't bad, it was the people behind _them_ that were talking about scoring Molly that Zeref was concerned with. A chill went through him that had nothing to do with the weather.

_Angel. You need to find Angel. _And he couldn't do that sitting still. Zeref stepped away from the fringes and into the firelight. Some eyes drifted his way, some people looking confused. He'd been out of the scene for a little while now. But if that was _really _true, how come he didn't feel out of place? _This life will always be for you_, he thought dully. _And you for it. _Because tigers couldn't change their stripes and other such over-used nonsense.

_So why not stop pretending? When you find Angel, just ask her for a pick-me-up. _Just a small one. He'd been so good lately.

Zeref chewed his cheek until he tasted iron. He needed to _focus_. He finished his beer and grabbed another from the keg. It'd been weeks since he'd drunk anything and his head was spinning already but it was welcomed. It was almost like getting a fix. Once he thought of it like that, the monster in his chest settled and he could think. He could _hunt_. And he didn't have to hunt very far. Angel was sitting across the fire, laughing at something someone said to her. Her voice was clear as a bell and made Zeref think of his dark bedroom, his revolver, and the emptiness of every bullet slot except _one_. And that one's potential.

Angel's eyes came up and locked on his like she felt him studying her. Her smile fell away. Something passed between them, and it was sure to be ugly and it was sure to be terrible. It was sure to ruin him, one day. There was peace in certainty, though, wasn't there?

Angel left the log she'd been using as a stool and came to him. Her arm fit in his. She smiled. She hadn't expected him to turn her down and he _wouldn't_.

_Just get what you need. Get what you need and get out._

Girls like Angel, though. They took everything, and what was left after that, too.

More eyes followed Zeref as they exited the ring of partiers around the fire. These ones weren't just curious, though. He spotted Ultear sitting next to Natsu. She was glowering at him and Angel fiercely. She wouldn't understand why he told her to leave him alone but then went back to Angel, and he wasn't in the mood to tell her, either.

Ultear's glower got more severe. She turned to Natsu, grabbed his face in both of her hands, and kissed him _hard._ Zeref left his brother to navigate that bear trap. It was probably safer than the one that surely waited for him up at the house.

Angel brought him away from the forest and into the backyard. There was a party going on in the hot tub, Zeref saw as they passed. He recognized Sting and Rogue and Brandish. They were smoking something stronger than weed. Zeref breathed deeply and pretended like he wasn't, but Angel missed nothing.

"How long have you been clean for?"

"A couple weeks." It didn't feel like a huge accomplishment when he was at home, considering his knife in his bathtub, or sitting beside his mother in a breakfast place, listening to her woes. It felt even more insignificant and useless now, standing beneath a lambent moon, the smell of heroin all around him, and Angel. Angel, whose purse was probably heavy with the perks she stole from the hospital. The pharmacist there _must _have been getting a cut from her side hustle. How else did she get so many narcs off the premises?

She said nothing. Zeref didn't know what she was thinking. _Good_, perhaps, but she would never say it, because the Zeref that needed her was the addict, and Angel desperately needed to be needed.

"So? What do you want from me?"

"I need money." There wasn't any delicate way to say it. "A lot."

Angel laughed. "I don't _have _a lot of money to just give away."

"But you could get product. I can help you move it. I know everyone." The junkies on and off their binges, the ballers looking to score a couple of times a month. He _knew _them. Better than Angel did. She knew it, too. She put on a stubborn face, though, crossing her arms.

"The last time you got involved, your brother was arrested and you told me to fuck off, remember?"

"My memory is fine," Zeref said. "I just need this. Natsu's not involved."

"Are you sorry?" She was still smiling, still enjoying the game. Zeref was _not._ He only stared at her. He wouldn't give her what she wanted. She was the most accessible supply he had and the most malleable one, but she wasn't the _only _person he could turn to.

Angel sighed hugely and put her arms around his neck. She did things like this so easily, leaned into him, touched him like his fucked up head didn't bother her. He might have been fucking crazy, but she would still call him baby. It reminded Zeref of Mavis, which reminded him of how careless he'd been when he was coming down.

"_Fine_," Angel said. Her lips whispered over his, bubble gum lip gloss. "I won't make you say sorry. I know you mean it, anyway."

There was nothing slight about Angel, Zeref recalled, touching her and leaning into her kiss. There was nothing shy, there was nothing sweet.

People moved over the front yard, going towards the house. Moonlight reflected off Natsu's pink hair. Ultear was beside him. That didn't mean anything, though. He would drop her as soon as he saw Lucy. He dropped _everything _as soon as he saw Lucy.

"Did you want to do a bump?" Angel breathed into him.

He would have definitely said yes then if he didn't have something else to focus on. He threw himself at figuring out how to get Natsu out of the house, away from Lucy. From disaster. "Maybe later. I have something I have to do right now."

"What?" Angel looked confused.

"Come by the apartment tomorrow," Zeref told her. He backed away as he spoke. Angel appeared frustrated _and _intrigued.

"Okay."

The fire was much larger now, someone had built a pyre. Inspired, Zeref went to his truck for camp fuel, a lighter and his cell phone. He returned to the now-empty backyard to first make a massive fire, then call the police with an anonymous complaint about it. The whole ordeal took a solid twenty minutes, his matches kept going out in the growing wind. He was nothing if not persistent.

Finally, the fire caught in the dead, dry grass and raced towards the forest. Zeref returned to the house and spotted just person he wanted to see. Loke, the man Lucy had arrived with, was sitting on a large boulder at the side of the Eucliffe property, smoking a cigarette and looking at the moon. Zeref put the camp fuel back in his pocket before approaching.

"Hey."

Loke looked up. He was still wearing sunglasses, though the sun had sunk hours ago. "Hi?"

"I just heard on my scanner, the pigs are coming," Zeref said.

Predictably, Loke dropped his cigarette and hopped to his feet. Zeref watched him enter the house through the front door. Zeref went around the side, past the hot tub. Ultear was sitting on the edge, naked. There were limbs everywhere, steam.

"Cops," Zeref called to her. She swore and rushed to get dressed without asking questions. Zeref continued into the house. He didn't have to go far to find Natsu. He had Lucy against a counter in the dark and abandoned kitchen just inside the doors. Lucy was down to her bra and trying desperately to get Natsu to undress. Both were so involved, neither seemed to notice him. Zeref spoke up. They were running out of time.

"We gotta go, Natsu."

Natsu swore under his breath and tried to use his body to hide Lucy's. He wasn't sober, though; his efforts were wobbly at best. "Give me a minute."

They didn't _have _a minute. Zeref could hear the sirens. "No. We have to go now."

"I'm _busy_." Digging his own grave with Lucy Heartfilia, the prettiest shovel Zeref had ever seen.

He embellished his lie to get his brother moving. "Gildarts just called me. Someone called in a complaint because some asshole made a huge fire in the field. You don't have a minute to be _busy _no matter how fast you are."

It still took Natsu some time to catch on. "The cops are coming to check it out?"

"Yeah."

Natsu pulled away from Lucy. He'd forgotten about her state of undress. "Do you have a ride home?"

Zeref stepped in again. "A guy named Loke brought her. I already found him and told him what's going on."

Lucy's usually sunny expression got cloudy. "What, are you spying on me?"

"No. Everyone saw you come in, everyone knows Loke and his big mouth and _I _know that you'd never leave otherwise." He couldn't resist the last. His brother swam in Lucy's bad decisions like he wanted to drown.

_Finally, _the door into the main part of the house opened and Loke entered, frazzled and moving fast. "Lucy? We gotta split. No time to get decent." He took off his sport coat and put it around Lucy's shoulders, drawing a deep frown from Natsu. That was what jealousy looked like. Zeref had seen it a lot between Angel and Ultear, but he never imagined his brother would be prone to it, too.

"Wait," Lucy protested as Loke shoved her between her shoulder blades. "Just hang on a second!"

Natsu stepped forward like he was going to intervene. Zeref grabbed his shirt sleeve. "Now."

Lucy complained all the way out of the kitchen. She was apparently easier to bully than a fully-grown Natsu. Natsu fought against Zeref's grip until Zeref shook him violently. "_Enough_."

Natsu's eyes cleared and got wide. He heard the screaming sirens and let Zeref take him out, over the now-empty deck, across the field lousy with fleeing bodies, and into the waiting Dakota. They took the back way and avoided a scene, just like Zeref planned.

It was silent in the cab until they were nearly home, then Natsu turned to him and said, "You knew she was going to be there. That's why you told me not to go up to the house. It wasn't about the cops at all, was it?"

Of all the lies Natsu could have picked apart, this was the least damaging. "I thought you might have gone looking for her if you knew." No question about it. A few beers could make even the worst decision seem like the best. He had proof. Angel was still in his head, her smile, her kiss, the memory of her drugs.

Zeref sighed and stole a look at his brother. Natsu smelled like Lucy's perfume. He had a dazed look in his eye. For the longest time, Zeref thought he was the only one of them that was sick, but just then, Natsu looked like he lived for the damage.

* * *

Angel rolled into Zeref's apartment around one-thirty the next day. She looked put together, but then again, she _always _did, her hair curled and her eyes looking hazy blue, like smoke in the sky. She took off her coat and draped it over the clean couch. The first blemish she left in his life. She opened up her compact case, showing off a tidy pile of cocaine, Zeref's drug of choice. The second.

She didn't speak as she moved to his kitchen table and upended the compact on the scarred lacquer. Zeref couldn't, either. He couldn't tell her to get out, he couldn't tell her to stop. He could only watch her organize two neat lines, one for her and one, predictably, for him, and feel the chasm in his chest gape. He wished Natsu would stop moping and get out of bed. He wished he could _call _him. But Natsu had gotten up once around ten to piss and had locked himself in his room again, thinking about Lucy, likely, and Zeref could only stand in his kitchen, airless and helpless.

Angel snorted all of one line back and pinched her nose. It must have hurt. Zeref wanted to feel that burn. He wanted to feel it so badly, he could die. He dug his fingers into the cut he'd made on his arm but that didn't seem to help clear his head.

His phone buzzed across the table, the screen lighting up with a picture of his mother on the swing at the back of their family home. There were grey skies behind her. There always was.

_You belong to this life,_ Zeref thought as Angel tipped the straw toward him. She smiled; she already knew what he was going to do, probably better than he did.

Zeref's phone stopped ringing and immediately started again. He put it on Do Not Disturb and sat down across from Angel. His nose burned worse than he remembered. Angel let him absorb that for a moment, let the seething monster he'd been ineffectually soothing calm, before sidling over into his lap. She was the third blemish in his life, he _knew _that. Just then, he couldn't remember why he tried to bleach her out, though.


	6. Chapter 6

Up all night on another white

* * *

Rain pelted the window relentlessly. With his head back and through a fringe of dark hair, Zeref watched the drops sluice down toward the frame, secretly wishing he could be one of them, sliding anonymously towards freedom.

It was hard to believe that _anything _existed beyond his room and the rain, but a car honked out in the street and someone yelled, sounds of life. Zeref made himself look around. Everything was muzzy. He had no idea which day of the week it was, whose rose-coloured bong that was on his table, or why the window was fractured. The rain kept slowing on the uneven ledge before getting caught, once more, in the inertia.

His bedroom door opened. Angel was there. She looked a bit thinner, perhaps, her underwear sitting a bit too loose on her hips, her breastbone protruding. Somehow, she was still beautiful, like a knife blade finely honed.

She just needed a bit of polish.

He did, too.

Angel climbed over him on the bed to get to between him and the wall and collapsed beside him. her hair was damp. She'd showered, then.

Angel rested her head on his chest and looked up at him with the big blue eyes other girls would use to get their way if they could. Angel relied on other weapons, not nearly a quarter as sweet. Her hands were cold on his chest, drawing small circles.

"I work tomorrow."

"Okay." That didn't tell him which day of the week it was or how much time had passed, lost in this haze.

"I can get some more narcs. Maybe oxies. Or hydromorphone."

His deep-seated wanting was almost bowled over by his repulsion. It was a close call. He did not relish this slave-like behaviour when anyone mentioned an opioid and yet, he could scarcely think about anything other than how, precisely, he was going to get his next fix.

He was in trouble. Maybe more than when he'd first started his methadone treatment.

Those thoughts brought him to Mavis, which drove him back to Angel, which drove him to the brink of madness.

Angel moved steadily down toward his cock and he didn't know if he was ready to do this. He was all pent-up energy and irritation and soreness if he was honest. Every part of him felt like it'd walked fifteen kilometres after a bad car accident and somehow, he wanted to walk it again before he laid down and died.

Something buzzed. He put his head back again, just as Angel reached her destination. His phone was on the bedside table and its face was lit up. Ultear, texting him that'd it'd been seven days since he'd left his apartment. She was careful not to be too familiar with him. She was still mad, then. Though not mad enough to leave him to rot in his bed for his brother to find if he'd died. Wasn't she sweet? Except, he imagined her thoughtfulness had more to do with Natsu than with him.

Zeref grabbed the phone and typed out a clumsy message.

Angel sat up so she could grab his cock more firmly. The soreness was fading into the background. He dropped his phone back to the bedside and in doing so, found the source of his mania. Coke. Where had it come from and how much was there originally? Because right now, there was only a fine powder dusting his nightstand and his veins felt like they'd been used to run pure gasoline.

"Who was that?" Angel asked, again looking at him between her lashes.

"Ultear."

Angel's lips tightened minutely. Most people wouldn't have noticed, but Zeref studied everything. Always. Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to turn that part of him off. Would he be more like everyone else then, or would he be even more of a fraud?

Angel saved voicing her opinion on the matter. She reserved that for her actions, sitting up straighter and taking her arms out of her tank top and rolling the material down around her waist. Her breasts were still heavy despite the weight she'd dropped.

Zeref's phone went off again. He looked back, though he knew it was Ultear and it would annoy Angel. Possibly _because _it would annoy Angel.

Predictably, another pulse of annoyance went through her. Not even because Ultear was texting him, but because he was looking at it while she was there, taking off her clothes.

She leaned forward, putting her body on him more completely. Zeref expected her to come back with his phone but she'd found something even more precious. The cocaine on his nightstand. She slid her finger through and sucked it off. She did it again and brought it to Zeref's lips.

He hesitated, thinking about methadone Mavis and Angel. Methadone, Mavis and Angel.

"What is it?"

Her eyes were the same blue as storm clouds. They really were one of her best features. "Have you ever thought about not?"

"Not what?" She blinked, oblivious—or acting it. Angel wasn't stupid.

It was too much work to explain himself. Zeref opened his mouth without further response and let Angel put her damp finger inside. His tongue tingled as he sucked off every drop. He wished there was more. He wished there was none of it. And more than that, he wished he'd said nothing to Angel. She was looking at him the same way a cat looked at a mouse in its paws, deciding if it was worth eating or just killing. He hoped she'd leave him to fester on the floor.

No such luck. She kissed his neck and his chest, leaving a cooling line of saliva. Her breasts pushed against him and he couldn't help but like it. So what if he couldn't connect with her on an emotional level? Wasn't physical just as well?

He'd been filling that void for a long time, though, and knew it was not the same thing without knowing _why._

Angel's mouth made a tight and wet circle around his cock and it didn't matter anymore.

* * *

The sun was coming up again as Zeref was coming down, full of restless energy. Angel had—somehow—fallen asleep and breathed easily beside him. She was sprawled across him and it felt intimate and not only did he not understand it, but he also did not want it. He felt _confined._

Zeref disentangled their bodies and stood, naked, in the middle of his room, breathing heavily for no apparent reason, staring at Angel and imagining ways he could get her out of his apartment. The last thought would have landed him in a psych ward.

He breathed deeply in an attempt to relax. It wasn't working without something to focus on. He needed clothes. He needed to shower. He needed to eat and maybe that would help him patch his veneer.

There was a pair of boxer briefs on the floor—questionably clean, but he grabbed them and put them on and quietly closed the bedroom door behind himself.

The apartment was tomb-quiet. Zeref kept it that way, tiptoeing silently to Natsu's room. It was empty. Someone had left a condom package on his bed. Zeref doubted it was his brother. The apartment felt like it'd been absent of his presence for days.

He went through Natsu's clothes, digging out a pair of jeans and a Black Sabbath T-shirt. He didn't want to have to go back into his own room and chance waking Angel.

He showered. He brushed his hair. He even cleaned the bathroom a little. It was a mess. Hair and dirt and other smears he didn't have a name for. He couldn't clean it top to bottom, though. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere, he kept losing focus.

So he started on the kitchen. There were McDonald's cups with cigarette butts in them, pizza boxes, empties strewn around the counters. It looked like he'd thrown party after party but aside from flashes of memory here and there, laughter, music, skin, foggy smoke and drugs, Zeref couldn't recall a goddamn thing.

His phone jangled. It was his mother.

_You were supposed to get her money, _he recalled. _You promised. _And that was… _seven days ago, _he remembered Ultear's text. Seven days had gone by, and if he'd sold Angel's drugs and made some money off of them, all he had to show for it was a full bed and a fucking disaster of an apartment.

_I need to get out of here. _And he needed to fix this. And he needed to do it _without _Angel because she was a fucking black hole with all of her drugs and her fucking blowjobs and her mean sighs that he liked almost as much as he liked cocaine.

He wanted to throw his phone and scream. Instead, he calmly slid the call to _Ignore _and searched every inch of the apartment for something to sell. He found a tab of LSD someone had lost in the couch and a baggy of weed he'd put under the coffee table for safe-keeping. It wasn't opioids and wouldn't fetch him nearly enough, but he had to have _something _to show for his efforts.

* * *

The sun was shining too brightly for Zeref's tastes. He hid behind his sunglasses and hunched in his leather jacket and wished he'd slept some before rushing out. He was exhausted _and _he was tweaking, hunting in his pockets again and again for a package of cigarettes he'd never find because he didn't leave the apartment with them. But he couldn't seem to stop.

"You're making me nervous," said August from Zeref's side. He spoke lowly so a cotton top couple on their way by couldn't hear.

Zeref breathed deeply and made his shoulders roll back against the bench at the edge of the sidewalk. There was a goddamn bird that kept chirping in his ear, making him twitch and preventing him from actually relaxing, though.

August leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "When was the last time you slept?" He didn't look at Zeref as he spoke, watching the people going by, hunting for someone very specific.

"I don't know."

Silence, then, "You're going to kill yourself."

Imagine, not choosing when he died but overdosing like a fucking waste.

"You should slow down."

He _should_.

"Here."

A cigarette was thrust into his hand. Zeref searched his pockets again for a lighter. A shadow fell over him and August and a black zippo struck a flame. Zeref leaned forward without looking up, lighting his cherry.

Then his visitor spoke. "Where is your brother, Zeref?"

Zeref took his time breathing deeply and exhaling, though all of his nerves had needles in them. Finally, he felt together enough to meet Jellal Fernandez's eyes. "Off minding his own business." Or so he hoped.

"He wasn't last Saturday."

Zeref thought he should say something in Natsu's defence but the only thing he could think of was Natsu pushing Lucy against the counter, pawing at her like he was in high school again. Just then, he didn't feel like he'd missed out on anything, not ever connecting with anyone or being in love. It was just a big fucking catastrophe.

"The kid's trying to get his shit together, Fernandez," August cut in when Zeref was just blank. "He loves the girl. Is that so bad?"

"I don't call the shots, August, you know that."

"You're more than just your uncle's lackey," August continued. "Don't pretend otherwise."

The look Jellal gave him could have made a deer skin itself. _Trouble, _Zeref thought again, _trouble is coming. _Jellal ignored August and focused on Zeref. "She's been sending him photos."

"Titty pictures?" August laughed. Jellal's fingers tightened into a fist, annoyed.

"Has he been reciprocating?" Zeref asked, eyes on Jellal's hands.

"He hasn't been telling her to stop." Which was just as bad in his eyes.

"I'll take care of it," Zeref said at last.

Jellal's shadow lingered for a moment more, then disappeared as he moved on into whatever hole he'd climbed out of. August cursed about him for a full minute. Zeref let his words roll over him, thinking about Natsu and Lucy and the trouble they were getting themselves into. She was going to get him killed. _He—_Zeref—was going to get Natsu killed. Natsu deserved better people in his life.

August sat back and rubbed his palms over his jeans, seemingly at ease again. "So what have you got?"

Zeref pulled away from his thoughts. "What?"

"Don't you have something to sell?"

Oh. That.

Zeref looked either way down the street, ensuring that they were alone. No cars, no pedestrians. He took out his scavenged drugs and handed them over for August's inspection. August's nose curled and Zeref saw what he'd brought in a new light. An opened package of LSD and a dime bag of pot that looked pillaged.

"This is shit."

Zeref took it all back without complaint and sunk lower on the bench. They sat in silence for a little while, Zeref smoking his cigarette down to the very filter and August crowd-watching with a stony countenance.

Finally, August said, "I've got a job you might be able to help me with if you're looking for cash."

"What kind of job?"

"My buddy's shop needs parts."

The pieces fell into place. "You think I know how to lift cars?"

"You can't sell drugs; you can't lift cars. What the fuck _can _you do, then?" August said with bark but not much bite.

More silence. Zeref searched his pockets again. August, the enabler, handed him his cigarettes once more.

"I can show you."

Zeref breathed out, thinking about his bedroom and the gun beneath his mattress and the knife and the bathtub and his phone ringing and the empty spot in his chest and his brother that was still MIA and all the things he _should _be but wasn't. The good brother. The collected one. The things he'd pretended to be, day in and day out.

_You pretend so much, what if you just pretended to be a car thief, as well?_ He wouldn't be good at it, of course, but he could fake it until he made it. And most importantly, cars didn't sell drugs.

"Okay."

"Here." August picked up a slate grey lockbox from his side and handed it over.

Like he was holding a viper, Zeref opened it cautiously and counted six amber bottles full of tang and methadone. His guts wrenched. He badly wanted to take them all at once. He'd probably be dead before he could think about standing, though. He cleared his throat. "Don't you need it?"

"Not as bad as you."

"What do you want for them?"

"This round's on me," August said.

"And the next?"

"We can talk about it when you're in a better place." August picked up one of the bottles and put it in Zeref's shaking hand. "Drink up, I can't fucking stand the way you're twitching."

He did, gladly. It settled in his empty stomach with a cold splash and moved through his limbs almost immediately. His chest unlocked and so did his mind. He could _think_. He could _see _all of the things he hadn't been able to before. Like August. He was talking to Zeref but watching a boy come down the street on a scooter. His focus was so intent, he was like a hunter watching a grouse move through the underbrush.

The boy got a bit closer and Zeref realized that it wasn't actually a boy at all but a man, twenty-one, at least, though Zeref knew from their brief interactions at the pharmacy that he had the mental capacity of a child. He even knew his name. Toni.

While Zeref was waiting for his methadone, he would watch Toni stand in front of the candy shelves for long moments, moving back and forth like a half-buoyant balloon, though he would always choose the same thing—one-dollar M&M's. Then he would plant himself at the cash counter with his hand full of coins, held out for the cashier to count. She'd pick out what he'd need with mock patience while Toni smiled at nothing and everything, perhaps too dumb or too innocent to be dour.

"Are you waiting for him?"

"Sure am." August stood. He was grey and wrinkled as the gills of a mushroom but he was an opposing presence at his full height, especially when he was mad, as he was now.

August positioned himself directly in Toni's path and snagged him by the throat with little warning. Toni's scooter fell to the sidewalk, stubby wheels spinning madly. August bullied him down an alley. Zeref rose and followed without really thinking about why.

August slammed Toni against a brick wall, out of view of the street and looked him over in obvious disgust. Toni didn't make a noise for three long beats. Then he started to writhe and scream like a wounded animal. He was not smiling now.

"Shut up!" August frothed and Toni got silent again. For a moment.

Then, "What are you doing?" Toni's words were malformed and guileless. If Zeref was a different person, he might have felt sorry for him. Toni clearly understood the danger he was in but was ill-equipped to diffuse the situation.

"Teaching you a fucking lesson."

"I didn't do anything! Let me go! My scooter—" More writhing. Another breath-stealing slam into the wall.

"I saw you last night."

"I wasn't anywhere last night!" Toni squirmed weakly in August's grasp. There really was no hope of him escaping.

"Sure you were, boy. I told you not to touch my bike before, did I? But you put your fucking grimy hand on it."

Toni looked terrified. "No—I—" His words disappeared into a scream as August twisted his fingers back and broke one.

"I told you not to touch my stuff," August yelled and slammed him back again. "I told you. You don't touch other people's things. You just don't fucking do it."

The beating began. Zeref smoked his cigarette to the filter, grossly fascinated by the rage and the helplessness. One was as familiar as an old friend, the other as coy as a potential lover, but both remained as insubstantial as air.

* * *

The sun sank and August showed Zeref how to lift his first car. It was an ancient Oldsmobile and it was so easy, he thought, _Maybe I _can _do this._ They took that and another, this one a newer model Cadillac that August did on his own while Zeref watched, back to the garage on Forty-Fifth Street where a man both tall and wide examined their work.

He gave Zeref three hundred for the Olds and August eight for the Caddy. It wasn't enough but Zeref wasn't in much of a position to complain. He had more money now than he had this morning, and he didn't even have to dance with the devil to get it.

He determined to be the best so maybe he didn't _ever _have to dance with that devil again.

When he got home, it was well past midnight. Angel was sitting on his step in a pair of ripped up jeans and a black bomber jacket. The wind was still cold enough to cut through her but her jacket was open so he could see the shirt she wore beneath. A white belly top. Her ribs looked even more pronounced beneath the streetlight.

"Where have you been?"

"Out," Zeref said shortly. It was none of her business.

"There was a kid that got brought in today."

"Okay."

"He was beaten up pretty bad."

Without much effort, he could hear the sound of flesh slamming into flesh again and again. "This town is shit." Truth.

"He spoke to the cops."

Zeref knew if Toni had anything solid on him, it'd be the police here waiting for him and not Angel. "Good for him."

"He couldn't identify you, but he said you had a tooth on a necklace and I knew." One matching Natsu's. The thong was so old it was starting to fray. Zeref waited for her to threaten him but she only asked, "Are you going to tell me why you just stood there and let it happen?"

He thought she should have been a little bit scared, but to him, she only looked thirsty for whatever twisted thing he was going to say. How disappointed would she be if he simply said he wanted to see if he could care enough to stop it?

Zeref moved by her, up the steps, key out.

Angel unfolded herself, miffed by his silence but also intrigued. One day that caviller attitude was going to land her in trouble with the wrong person. Hell, maybe _he _was that person. "I got that stuff we talked about."

Zeref opened the door. The apartment was still black inside and had the air of a ghost. Angel followed him in and closed the door. "Contact your buyers. We can have cash in our hands tonight." Before they could do all of the drugs again, she meant.

"I changed my mind, I'm not selling." Zeref took off his jacket and threw it on the coatrack. He could _feel _Angel's scathing glare.

"What do you mean?"

That he _couldn't _anymore. He was trying to tell Natsu to get clean but he was drowning, too. He was a slave and he _hated _it. "Figure some other way to move it."

Her expression got tight, her eyes narrow, and Zeref thought she was going to start screaming. Then a calmness fell over her and he wasn't sure if she just didn't believe his proclamation, or if she figured she could wear him down.

"I guess." She threw off her own jacket and flopped on the couch with her purse, pulling out all of the drugs she'd taken and spilling them on the table to put into piles. There was quite a lot. Methamphetamines, other generic opioids. Enough to win her a couple grand, at least. Zeref's chest was a big hole again. He looked at the lockbox August gave him. It was still too early to have more methadone. He needed to pace himself.

Angel put one of the pills she was sorting on her tongue and looked up at him challengingly. "Kiss me?"

She wanted to wear him down, then. "Fuck off."

Angel laughed. Zeref went to the washroom to sweat out the withdrawal and stayed there for a long time, hoping she'd go away. She didn't. Once the pill she took kicked in, he heard her turn on music and talk on her phone, trying to set up some buyers. He snuck into his bedroom an hour later and closed the door, muffling the light and the sound.

Angel came to him sometime near dawn, high and horny. Zeref was sleepless and frustrated. He fucked her roughly in every hole she had to fuck and bit her hard when she asked. He would not kiss her, though, lest he taste drugs on her tongue.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay in business?" she asked when he was through and she was cleaning come off her stomach.

Zeref fell back on his pillow without response, knowing that he should kick her out but unable to.

* * *

A/N: Hi. It's been a while, sorry.

I live in a small town. I work at a methadone clinic. I see a lot of weird things. That bit with the disabled boy and the scooter and a bike actually happened. I am the girl he gets to count his money out when I'm not in the back dispensing. Someone did actually bully him. The bully was just as disabled. The world's a weird place.

Thanks for reading this twisted thing.


	7. Chapter 7

In the dark everything, it looks better

* * *

Zeref knew Natsu had been home because the apartment was clean. It was simple deduction—it wasn't like Angel was going to do it, and Zeref certainly couldn't focus for long enough to get it done with this level of efficiency.

When he checked in Natsu's room, though, it was empty, leaving Zeref to wonder if he came home just to leave again.

He drank his methadone and hid the rest in the beer fridge in his room, thinking Natsu wouldn't bother going in there for anything. He didn't like the idea of his little brother knowing just how far into the fire he'd wandered.

Though she was nowhere to be found, Angel still had a duffle bag tossed on Zeref's floor, meaning she'd be back. Some part of him was glad for the redundancy of their poisoned routine and looked forward to her return.

He sat down on his bed and waited for hours for her return. So long, he slept fitfully, fully clothed and sweaty as the methadone began to wear off. Near three, his door finally opened and she came in, smelling like the soap she used when she showered at the hospital, and cigarettes.

"Hi, baby."

"You're high," Zeref said immediately, wishing for his own sanity that he was wrong.

"Methamphetamines. We can stay up all night if you want," she said with a disassociated laugh and thrust her purse at him. "They're inside."

Zeref clutched the bag tightly, sweating and trying to breathe deeply. He wanted them so bad. Worse than he'd ever remembered wanting something before. But he thought of twitching on the bench and his absent brother. He thought of meth mouth and bones protruding from skin. He thought of people dozing their way through life, mostly dead, dreaming of nothing but their next fix and never, ever being satisfied. He didn't want to be King Midas. If he was going to kill himself, it was going to be with his revolver, head empty and clear.

Zeref let the bag fall from his hands. It fell on the floor and all of her things scattered out. It was a win, for sure, but it didn't _feel _like one.

Angel flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, unconcerned that her lipstick, tampons, wallet, Advil, and drugs were everywhere. "And selling? Will you still not do that, either?" Her smile was crooked with meanness. She thought he had no other options. He wasn't ready to let her know otherwise. He didn't trust Angel, especially with a secret like carjacking.

"I'll pass."

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him in the darkness, trying to tempt him. Only, he wasn't like the other guys she bullied into doing things her way. He'd made a decision and it was fucking hard keeping with it, but he _would_.

She must have seen some iron in him because she shrugged and moved on to her next order of business—taking her clothes off. Her skin was smooth and uninterrupted and there was a _small _part of Zeref that thought he wanted to touch her to see what she'd feel like under his fingers. There was a bigger part of him that suddenly didn't give a fuck. He was tired. He had a ruse to keep up. Natsu thought he had a legitimate job. He'd get up tomorrow morning and let him keep thinking that. They needed to have some normal here, even if it was all a charade.

He laid down beside her and said, "I have shit I have to do early tomorrow. Take care of yourself?"

She was silent. Perhaps he should have paid better attention to the viper coiling in the dark.

* * *

Days and nights slipped by in a haze of obsession. He'd crave Angel's methamphetamines but drink his methadone like the good boy he wasn't. It rained on and on and on. He felt as dreary as the sky. Sometimes, he'd look at his empty anti-depressant bottle and wonder if he shouldn't try them again. He could go back on _all _his meds, actually, and he wouldn't have to pretend so much, maybe. Maybe they would make him feel normal.

_Or normal is a lie people on that medication tell so they don't disappoint their doctors and their families? _He wondered.

Zeref's phone rang, drawing him from his contemplation. His mother's face was on the screen. This was one call of tens. She'd been trying since before he went on his binge. He'd been avoiding her. He couldn't do it much longer, though.

With a sigh, he answered the phone. "Hi, mom."

"Hi, baby." She said _baby_ differently than Angel did. More manipulative but much less seductive. He felt her voice inside his ear like cat claws in furniture. "How are you feeling?"

The words sounded right but there was no force behind them. She didn't care. _Maybe this is where the sickness comes from,_ Zeref thought. "Fine." Fucked up. Insecure. Narcissistic. Empty.

"And your brother?"

There was a bit more concern in her voice now. Natsu brought out the best in all of them. "He's…"

"Gildarts said he was staying there for a few days."

A small knot Zeref hadn't even been aware of untied itself in his chest. _That's _where Natsu had been. Which was far better than on Ultear's floor, or Erik's. Gildarts was the most level person Zeref knew. He wasn't perfect but when he adulted, at least his bills got paid.

"You didn't even know, did you?" his mother accused.

"I've been busy and Natsu's got some shit going on."

"All the more reason you should be taking care of him."

Zeref opened his beer fridge and looked inside at his amber methadone bottles, thinking he could hardly take care of himself let alone his brother.

"What's going on with him?" his mother prodded when Zeref remained silent.

"Girls," he said, though his mind was on Natsu shivering on the bathroom floor, heroin running in his veins.

"Girls?"

"Girl," he amended. "Law School."

"Linda?"

"Lucy." He supposed he shouldn't feel relieved his mother fucked up with Natsu, too, but he wasn't.

"The lawyer's daughter," she remembered. "What happened? Did she cheat on him?"

"No."

"Then what?"

Zeref had to stop himself from scratching a hole in his arm for no better reason than because he could. Withdrawal was funny like that. He cracked the lid on the methadone bottle. It was his second-last. He'd have to return all of the bottles to August again and scrounge up a hundred bucks to give him. It was twice the price he'd have to pay if he just went to the clinic himself but he was afraid Mavis was still there and he might fall right back into trouble with her. He'd _liked _her. Maybe he still did. And he _hated _that.

"Zeref?"

He jarred away from the memory of Mavis' soft blonde hair and innocent smile. "Something about her dad being an elitist cunt."

"Zeref," she began as if to scold him for his vocabulary, then went back and began again. "What do you mean, elitist?"

"He doesn't like Natsu."

"Because we're not rich like him?"

"I don't fucking know," Zeref said, suddenly irritated without knowing why.

Immediately, his mother said, "Don't get lippy."

"Well, don't ask stupid questions. I have no idea."

"It's not stupid. I'm trying to be involved in your life. You guys never visit." Because the last time they did, Zeref got into a huge fight with Dad. But she knew that. "You hardly call anymore, either, and if you do, you never tell me anything." She made her voice soft. "I miss you."

Zeref couldn't tell if she was sincere or not, not without seeing her face. He sighed. "Ask Natsu that stuff. I don't know."

"I'll call him," she said after a moment, like she had to work herself up to it. "But do you have the money we talked about?"

Zeref had been expecting the question and told her a version of the truth. "Some things came up."

"So?"

"So, no, I don't."

"You promised me two weeks ago."

The accusation in her voice hit him like a ten-pound bag of salt to the chest. "And then stuff happened."

"Like what?"

_I fucked it all away on opioids_, he thought bitterly but wouldn't say it. He wanted no sympathy from her. No fuss, no rehab no one could afford. He just wanted to get his shit together on his own. He could. He _would_. "Just shit. I have bills to pay, too."

She started bitching. He held the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. He could almost see his mother's mouth moving around the words. He thought of all the awful ways he could make her shut up, the terrible things he could say and the vicious ways he could say them but settled for pressing the END button and blocking her number until he felt like talking to her again.

Which might be never.

* * *

The more he pushed Angel away, the more time she seemed to spend at his apartment. Though she wasn't necessarily spending her time with him. More than once, he caught her tiptoeing out of his room in the small hours of the morning, wearing nothing but her underwear and a tank top, when she'd hear the front door open. When Natsu bothered to come home, it was always late.

Zeref listened to the couch cushions creak as they sat down together and whispered lightly back and forth. He strained to hear what was said but could never quite make out the voices. He imagined it was shit about him but that was just paranoia from drug withdrawal talking. August's dose of methadone was much lighter than Zeref's needed to be and he spent most of his time still in the grips of massive withdrawal.

He fell asleep fitfully with the sound of their voices scraping over his ears, never forming true words.

The next morning, he awoke dizzy and sick and tired. He dry heaved as quietly as he could in the bathroom and washed his mouth out with Listerine. Somehow, they'd run out of toothpaste. He wasn't keeping it together as much as he thought he was.

He made himself coffee afterward and was sitting at the table, cracking the lid of his last methadone when Natsu's door opened and he came out wearing only a pair of jeans, looking rumpled and tired and as pale as Zeref felt. Zeref looked for burns on his lips or bruises on his arms but could see none. Either he was better at pretending than Zeref was or he was staying away from heroin.

If it wasn't drugs occupying his time, then…

There was a deep bruise on Natsu's neck and an old bite-mark on his shoulder he probably forgot about. He fucked other girls in between Lucy, Zeref knew but thought only Lucy could keep him up late _and_ clean.

He sighed internally, thinking about Jellal and his warning and how Zeref was going to have to take care of it, apparently, because Natsu didn't seem to be able to.

_It's better this way. _Natsu _could_ do the rough work, he'd proven that again and again—he was a scrapper. But that old simmering rage Zeref felt when he thought of his brother lying in the hospital was the closest thing he'd ever felt to anything real and he would do anything not to feel it again. As much as he sometimes craved to be like everyone else, it was better to be an automaton.

"Morning." Natsu pulled out the chair opposite Zeref and fell into it with a thump. He even smelled like Lucy's perfume. He was barely even trying.

"Morning."

"You look like shit."

Zeref hid the Methadone bottle a little better between his legs beneath the table. "Flu. What's your excuse?"

Natsu scrubbed his hand through his hair, making the bright locks stand on end and looked down at the table for just a second—his liar's tell. "I got a job at Driftwood, working maintenance and counter. I've been on nights"

The Driftwood Motel was the shittiest motel in town and _not _the place Zeref would have imagined Lucy Heartfilia meeting for a clandestine affair. For a brief moment, he wondered if he was way off his mark and if Natsu was meeting someone else instead. Then he looked at the happy glow that surrounded his brother, the slight crook to his mouth, the lightness in his eyes and the way his shoulders were straight and decided no. This screamed Lucy Heartfilia through and through, which in actuality, screamed trouble.

"Don't let them work you too hard."

Some of the glow came away from Natsu. "You didn't get in until late last night."

Because he'd been out helping August jack a car. Zeref lied again. "They keep swapping my shift at the coffee shop, people keep quitting." He hoped his lie stood firm.

Natsu blinked and Zeref thought for _sure _he was going to call him on that bullshit, but instead, Natsu asked the unexpected, "Have you talked to Mom?"

"No. And you shouldn't, either," Zeref said before he could stop himself. He didn't want her bugging Natsu for money, too, when he failed to provide. She was toxic without ever meaning to be and put unnecessary strain on every life she touched.

Natsu didn't ask why. If he was feeling himself, Zeref would have looked into that a little more, but he desperately wanted to dig into his coffee and his methadone. He didn't feel right in any sense of the word.

"Yeah." Natsu stood and returned to his room without another word.

* * *

Two days later, Zeref woke to a note left on the kitchen counter. Natsu was gone to their parents for the weekend. It was flippant of him not to say anything and childish and it made Zeref wonder just how much of his fuckery Natsu was aware of.

He unblocked his mother's number so he could call her. She didn't answer. He texted her, too. _DON'T ask him for money. _The text never went through, though. Zeref suspected she blocked his number as well, in retribution. She could be petty like that.

Without having Natsu around to put on an act for, Zeref went back to his room and slept for another four fitful hours. It was two o'clock when his door was pounded on. He yanked it back and was met by silky hair as dark as the night's sky.

Ultear had done herself up in the best ways she knew how, dangerously red lipstick, long, thick lashes, satin beneath her spring/late winter coat. She looked beautiful and fucked up and like she was perched on a perilous ledge.

"I don't have anything to sell," Zeref said immediately—the first words they'd spoken in nearly a month.

"I'm not looking to buy, just forget a little." She held up a dime bag of weed. Who knew where it came from or what it was laced with? Zeref immediately felt the lion in his chest perk up and gape open his mouth. It wasn't opioids and it wasn't methamphetamines but it was _something_. And if it helped take the scraped-raw edge off everything and it was free, Zeref was willing to try it.

He opened the door barely wide enough for her. She brought in the scent of spring—fresh fallen rain and cool air—cigarettes, and the smell of another man's cologne. It was a scent Zeref recognized on her. She'd been to see her stepbrother and sometimes lover. It was the most fucked up thing in Ultear's near-perfect life and the reason Zeref was drawn to her when it seemed she was only there for the thrill ride.

Ultear looked around the apartment like she expected people to slide out of dark corners but for once, the place was empty, it was just them. She faced him as she took off her coat. "Angel?"

"She's at work." Zeref added, "She doesn't live here." Though it felt like it lately. Did that make them something more? Zeref wasn't sure. Fuck, he wasn't even sure he liked her. She was just there, inserting herself in his life. An addiction in her own right, bringing drugs and temptation. He'd been pushing her away lately but didn't understand why he didn't just blatantly tell her to get the fuck out.

That seemed to please Ultear. She found a spot on the floor and took a pipe out of her purse and packed it tightly with weed. Zeref stood over her, watching her work. She looked up at him after letting it go on for a moment, straight-faced. Angel might have smiled but Ultear was a different creature altogether. Her lips laid flat like bloodstains on pale skin.

"If you're going to tell me to get out, just do it. I'm not going to cry."

"I think I want you here," Zeref responded, which was the truth. She was a change in flavour and pace.

His words had an unforeseen affect. Ultear's cheeks pinked and her lips twitched. He'd made her happy. She subdued whatever expression tried to escape her, though, and she went back to being the broody girl Zeref sometimes admired.

He sat down beside her, right on the floor, and handed her a lighter. Smoke clouded the air, hazy and as thick as fog. It surrounded them and blurred out all of everything else. Zeref didn't have to look at his table, messy from whatever the fuck drugs it was Angel took on it that morning or Natsu's empty room, and he couldn't see the dishes he had to do to keep up his illusion of being _together_.

Then the cloud of smoke rose and he could see everything clearly again. He took the pipe from Ultear and fogged it up once more. It was better when he was faded.

"You looked like you needed that," Ultear said. Already, she sounded distant to Zeref's ears.

He turned his head and looked at her. Whatever tension had been riding with her was melting away. "What's going on with you?"

Ultear took another draw off her pipe before handing it to Zeref and laying back on the floor. Zeref killed it and laid back with her, shoulders brushing. He felt a shiver move through her and wondered what it would be like to crave someone that much. It could be mean, being this close to her, and it could cause him more problems in the future, but he didn't feel like stopping.

"I'm fucked," Ultear finally lamented in a voice that was too full of levity for the situation. Zeref said nothing but she didn't need prompting. "I think he cares about me. Honestly cares. Like, wants to _be _with me cares."

"Your stepbrother?"

"Obviously."

"So?"

She turned her head, her hair glistening like a black waterfall against the questionably clean floor. "So _no_. We can't. I can't. My mom would fuck me up."

"Then stay away from him."

She exhaled and touched between her breasts as if remembering where his fingers had once been.

"He's in your head."

"He's everywhere."

That was the most honest he'd ever seen Ultear and he craved honesty like he craved cocaine and Percocet. He needed to keep seeing it to remind himself to always be the best fake version of himself.

"So fill your head with someone else."

She searched his eyes. Who knew what she was seeing? Beasts? Or exactly what she wanted to see?

Ultear rolled into him and put her mouth against his in a tentative kiss first, testing the grounds, seeing how much he meant what he said. Zeref opened up for her and searched out her tongue. She tasted like cinnamon and whimpered ever so slightly and he got rock hard. There was power in knowing he had such control over one of the most unmalleable girls he'd ever been with. She was stubborn and headstrong and got through life by pure determination. And yet, she bent to even his craziest whims.

He thought of the gun he held in his hand and the way she watched him lift it to his head, the uncertain look on her face and the tension that moved through her when he pulled the trigger, and the _relief _afterward when he was still alive. It was nice to feel wanted, he had to admit.

He slid his hand up over her middle, beneath the satin of her shirt. She was fuller than Angel was now because she wasn't struggling in the same ways they were. She was a slave to no drug, no sleepless night. That was nice, too. Ultear was almost like an anchor in a sea of insanity.

She sighed and nipped his lip when he got up to the undersides of her breasts. Zeref squeezed her hard, unable to help himself, and pulled her into him. This was indulgence for the beast he'd been denying for weeks but it was safe. Ultear was the burning fuse, she wasn't the bomb.

She climbed on top of him, forcing him flat against the floor. Deftly, she undid her shirt and yanked it up out of her high-rise jeans. There were hickey marks on her breasts. Zeref kissed over top of them so she could think about someone else when she saw them and told himself it was a kindness.

Ultear yanked her bra off and pushed her breasts together for him, moving her hips against his in a way that seemed overzealous at first until he felt how warm and wet she was through their clothing. Zeref's body responded to hers.

Ultear yanked him up and pulled his shirt over his head. The floor was startlingly cold when he laid back down again.

She did the same for him as he did for her, leaving her mouth marks over Angel's so he didn't have to think of her all the time. Each time her mouth met his skin it was like fireworks going off. He was hyper-sensitive to this one thing. Everything else was a blur in the background, like the fear that Natsu might come home and catch him like this in the middle of the living room with a girl that he'd been with himself, no less, or Angel returning and proving just how jealous she could be.

He was in sweatpants, making Ultear's job easier when she finally got to the junction of his legs. She rubbed through his pants first, though, seemingly as much for herself as it was for him. He lifted his hips up for her and she relented, pulling the fabric down so he came out. She took her time touching him before placing a condom on and then taking him into her mouth. He gathered her hair in one hand and cupped her chin with the other and fucked her mouth deep enough to make her gasp for breath when she could.

Zeref pushed himself to the brink of orgasm before he let Ultear come up for air. Her cheeks were twin roses of colour and her makeup was running a bit beneath her eyes but she looked thrilled. She stood and got out of her jeans. There was another hickey on her thigh, this one large, and a handprint to match.

Ultear stepped up and knelt around his shoulders, positioning herself for his tongue. He left his handprints in place of her stepbrother's and when she orgasmed, he bit her thigh hard enough to bruise. She thanked him for it in between panted breaths.

She wriggled away from him when he let her and positioned herself over his cock. It felt very intimate letting her look at him in that reverent way, but Zeref let her continue doing it, neither encouraging her nor denying her. He didn't even _touch _her now. She did all the work, spreading her legs wide and planting her hands on her knees.

Zeref watched her move up and down over his body, letting everything fade away. The beast gnawing his insides was temporarily satiated.

* * *

A/N: It's been a hot second.

If anyone hasn't read my Heartbreak universe and is interested in doing so, it goes (Chronologically) Tasting Obsession, Heartbreak Grows in the Garden, Stars in the Sky, Church of Beasts, Good Bad things (Ultear's story that I mentioned above. I'm proud of that one.).


	8. Chapter 8

Remember when the lights dim down  
It's only the dark

* * *

Light bounced off low-hanging clouds like lightning in the late-summer sky. Laughter chased it like a thunderclap, zagging through the streets, distorting, to Zeref's ear. He sucked on his cigarette. It crackled like dried twigs and coned. He was smoking too fast. His thoughts were all jumbled, though, as he tried to figure out how to treat what happened _after _Ultear.

The apartment's door opened, and she came out, jean jacket on her shoulders and chunky heels on her feet. She stepped around Zeref, the cuff of her jacket the only thing that ever touched him and descended the stairs skillfully as though she were sober. Then she was meandering down the road.

Zeref wanted to call her back and ask her what was between her and Natsu. What was between her and _him, _and why she came there tonight. He felt like he was staring at a different language and struggling to read it without a guide. But that language was waltzing away from him as though he didn't matter.

Zeref almost believed that. Then he remembered it was Ultear. Ultear and her penchant for games. He saw her walk for what it really was—a ploy. She wanted him to call her back. He wouldn't, though, because girls like Ultear wanted something guys like Zeref couldn't give. They deserved it, too. Ultear was like Angel in as many ways as she wasn't. They were both mean, they were both cold, but Ultear's was all surface frost. Underneath, she had a lot of stuff to offer, and Zeref was just like a forest fire. He'd burn it all up without even saying thank you. It was best if she kept going.

"Does your brother know you share girls?" asked a voice with a drawling accent.

Zeref took his time in turning, breathing in a lungful of smoke and letting it out gradually, so he didn't show how badly he'd been startled. There was a man standing with his back against the movie store, arms crossed, a cigar in his mouth. He looked ridiculous in his sunglasses when the sky was dark. Zeref wanted to laugh at him but he looked at the guy's expensive suit bulging at his hip, and well-tied tie and the noise got all jammed up.

"Cat got your tongue?"

"I'm trying to enjoy a smoke," Zeref finally said. "Can I do that before I answer any stupid fucking questions?"

Silence webbed between them, but it wasn't companionable. Zeref finished his cigarette and flicked the butt onto the road where it would smoulder until the wind pushed it into a puddle or it burned out. He rose and entered the apartment. Sunglasses followed him inside, closing the door. Zeref heard it lock, too. His tension was up, his nerves were raw—he would kill for a hit of _anything_ just to feel fuzzy and stoned, and that one _click _near put him over the edge. He reminded himself to breathe and be calm.

"Do you know who I am?" the man asked. His voice made Zeref cringe. That accent.

"Expensive suit, side piece." Zeref made a show of scrunching up his face and thinking it through. "Are you from the Godfather set?"

The man didn't crack a smile. "Name's Wally. I work for Mister Fernandez."

"Get benefits? I've been looking for something new."

Wally remained straight-faced. He pulled open his suit and reached into the pocket. Zeref tensed, expecting a weapon to point at him but Wally only pulled out pieces of well-folded paper. Zeref could practically taste the anxiety in each one of those folds. Someone had opened and closed them frequently. Mulled over them. Opened them again.

Wally threw the stack on the floor where they spun and slid over each other. One of the papers opened. Zeref squinted to read the name of a local motel. Below were room rates for the week. Natsu's soberness, his improving mood. The pieces all snugged together, and he shook his head. He knew his brother had been seeing Lucy, but he didn't know he was leaving such a paper trail. "You fucking idiot, Natsu."

"Yet, you don't sound particularly surprised."

"Have you ever tried to make my brother do something he doesn't want to do?" Wally just looked at him. Zeref said, "Lucy's father shouldn't be surprised, either. She's the same fucking way. Or does he think it's Natsu's college fund that's bankrolling this?" He nodded to the motel receipts.

"He doesn't care _who's _paying. He wants it to stop and he wants it to stop _now._" There was a dangerous edge to his voice. Zeref looked again at Wally's hip. Now that his jacket was open, he could see the blunt edge of the gun grip. It was a pistol, like his, but it was a Glock instead of the 44 Magnum beneath his bed. There would be no fussing with bullets or hoping that it was cocked to the right chamber. He'd fire and Zeref would be tasting a bullet. Or were those reserved for Natsu? He felt a blanket of cold settle over him. It was as familiar to him as an old friend and it had been forever since he'd welcomed it home. Yet, Zeref hesitated to open the door.

"He loves her." Which sounded like a weak fucking excuse, especially to someone who'd never actually been in love.

"Frankly, neither Mister Heartfilia nor Mister Fernandez cares. They warned him."

"They put him in the fucking _hospital_." Where Natsu was bruised and broken for weeks. Zeref could still feel the rage that led him to bust up some kid's face, trying to learn if it was a random mugging or if his brother was targeted. He ran his thumb over the raised scar on his knuckles. The proverbial door was rattling. Zeref felt the cold beyond it leach into his fingertips.

"Which he thought was kinder than a grave. They're done being kind." The humanity was bleaching out of Wally faster than Zeref could keep track of. One moment he almost looked like things could be civil and the next, he looked barely even human. "Where is he?"

Zeref laughed, short, quiet. "No."

"No?"

He didn't see red like people say you do. He didn't even see black. He saw everything with heightened clarity, actually. People just say that stuff because they don't like to admit that they think about what they were doing.

He felt like a snake lashing out. He hit Wally's abruptly square jaw so hard, Zeref felt his finger snap. That would hurt. At some point. For now, it just felt weird. Like it wasn't in the right place.

Wally stumbled back, dazed for an instant. Then he shook it off and started to go for his gun. Zeref hit him again with his other hand. Wally's temple was softer than his jaw. He fell and smacked his head off the corner of the table, stunning himself. His sunglasses went off-kilter. Zeref looked into his eyes. They weren't cold and hard like August's had been when he beat on Toni. They were wide and wounded, and way too human to do a job like he was doing without access to his gun. That was the problem with the world. Not enough sociopaths doing the rough work. Which was why, Zeref supposed, Wally believed he couldn't be beaten do death with bare fists. He didn't know anyone savage enough to do it.

Zeref made sure they were acquainted.

* * *

There was blood everywhere. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. Somehow. Even in places he didn't expect it to be. Like under the lip of the table. Zeref stared at the mess and its source. He didn't feel scared, exactly, but he felt shaky. From his temples to his ankles. The tremors came and went, sometimes attacking him so badly, his teeth would chatter. When they left, he was as hollow as a bored-out hole.

His brain kept slipping. He needed an action plan. Because people that kept dead bodies on their living room floor found themselves in trouble. He needed to get rid of Wally.

Their neighbour across the street, where the houses were nicer, kept shovels in their garden shed. Zeref saw the rotund little lady out there in the spring and the fall moving her blue hydrangeas. He used the cover of darkness to retrieve them, taking both in case one broke or it was better than the other. He was thinking of preparedness more than ever. He supposed hiding a dead body would do that to you when you weren't overcome by fear or horror.

He was staring at Wally's limp form and wondering how he was going to get him out of the house without being seen when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Zeref only had time to tense when the door opened and Natsu came through.

He looked beaten up and exhausted, as he always did when he came back from their parents. He didn't even lift his head for a moment and Zeref had a vision of him walking around the body and Zeref and retreating to his room without ever noticing anything was amiss. Then Natsu closed the door and looked up and Zeref familiarized himself with a brand-new emotion. Total horror. He'd seen something close to it before, when he told Doctor Raquel he'd watched their old neighbour set a dead cat on fire, but _this_ horror was deep-seated on a face he knew better than his own. It was almost enough to rattle his core.

They stared at each other in silence for so long, Zeref thought it wasn't possible for either of them to speak, then Natsu's phone rattled off and they both jumped. Lucy's face was on the bright screen. She was so blonde and so bright and so out of place in the apartment. She had a black bow in her hair, and she was smiling.

Natsu lifted the phone up like he didn't recognize it.

"Don't answer it," Zeref said, thinking of self-preservation and lies and the integrity his brother had but he didn't.

"It's Lucy," Natsu said in a vague and soft way like he was a threadbare sheet just twisting in a gale and Lucy could be the shelter that made it all stop.

He was going to do it. "Don't fucking answer it," Zeref growled. "You'll flip out and she'll know."

Natsu looked up at him with the largest eyes, not moving. The phone stopped ringing. "Fuck," Natsu whispered in the silence. And again, "Fuck."

Zeref had been sort of cool before but now he felt like there was a balloon of agitation inflating inside of him. Natsu wasn't supposed to be here. He only complicated things. Now he didn't just have to worry about himself. He had to worry about his level brother who was softer-edged in every way. Natsu kept looking at Zeref's hands. And then the body on the floor, and mouthing, _fuck. _Fuck, indeed. Fuck.

"Get out of here," Zeref decided. That was the best, easiest way. If he wasn't involved, nothing could go wrong, he could never talk, and he'd never have to cart the memory of this around with him. He could go back to being the good boy. The _best _Dragneel.

Natsu looked like he didn't understand. His face was pale and open and innocent and scared. "What?"

"Leave." Zeref lifted his hands to push him back towards the door. Then he saw all the blood and thought better of it. He used his words instead. "You don't have to be involved. You were at Mom and Dad's; you didn't come home."

There.

Zeref turned his mind toward getting Wally out of the apartment. He'd have to carry him, there was no other option. He'd lifted dead animals before, mostly cats and dogs he'd found squished on the road. He'd even pulled the teeth out of one dog's head when he was young and wanted to make Natsu a necklace with it. Men were different, though. Larger, more awkward, limper, and entirely too much like him.

Zeref imagined himself in Wally's place. If he hadn't been as vicious, it could have been so. It would have been EMS pulling him out of there, though. Men and women with gurneys and the experience of lifting and shuffling around hundreds of bodies. He wondered if he shouldn't have tried to go to school for that. If he had, he would have had some real-life experience for what was to come now.

Zeref crouched low and grabbed Wally from around the shoulders. He had a head wound Zeref hadn't noticed before. He must have gashed it open when he fell on the table. But it was so huge. Zeref followed the trail of blood and saw multiple globs on the ground. He remembered grabbing Wally's shoulders and forcing him down repeatedly.

Wally's head rolled right, and blood smeared all over the wall and down Zeref's leg. Head wounds bled so fucking much. Zeref clenched his jaw. He didn't know _how _things got so out of hand, or how he was going to fix them. He'd done bad stuff before but nothing like this. This was next level. And the longer he thought about it, the larger and larger that ball of anxiety in his chest felt. Soon it would pop, and he didn't know if he was going to scream or throw up when it happened. Both, possibly.

"You can't take him out like that."

Zeref startled. Natsu was _still _standing over him, looking down. "I told you to leave."

Natsu ignored him and went to the rubber maid they kept beside the couch. It was always overflowing with old ratty blankets. He pulled out one out at random. Zeref recognized the shredded retro Ghostbusters blanket, black except for Slimer on the front, lolling his large pink tongue out of his gap-toothed mouth. The last time they'd used it was at their parents for a sleepover for Natsu's eighth birthday. They'd invited a bunch of kids over from his class and made a blanket fort between two chairs and watched horror movies they weren't supposed to watch but Zeref was babysitting and he didn't care. He could still remember laying on his back at the end of the night, feeling Natsu shiver beside him and whisper about Slimer coming to life.

There were bigger things to fear now.

Natsu returned and laid the blanket on the ground beside Wally.

Zeref _knew _he should tell Natsu to fuck off again and save them both some headaches, but truth be told, it was going to be a pain in the ass to get Wally out on his own. He could use an extra set of hands. Why not the ones that were already in on the secret? Besides, there was no one else in the world Zeref trusted better than Natsu.

Zeref again gathered Wally up by the shoulders. Natsu grabbed his feet. Once he was centred, they rolled him up like the worst burrito.

There was painter's tape on the shelf. Zeref didn't even remember why he bought it; it wasn't like they were going to paint their shitty, illegal apartment. It was so old that the sticky glue wasn't quite so sticky anymore.

He let Natsu wrap it around Wally's head and his feet. He used so much that they ran out of tape. He threw the empty roll somewhere behind him.

Then Natsu stood and grabbed the truck keys off the hook by the door.

"Be careful," Zeref told him. Natsu closed the door behind himself without a response. Zeref looked down at Wally. He looked just like a body from an old mobster movie, all wrapped up and featureless, the top of the blanket soaking through with blood.

"You stupid fucking cock," Zeref muttered and kicked his side without much gumption. The only thing he was sorry about was Natsu's involvement.

The Dakota's growling engine sounded right close to the door. Zeref turned off the interior lights and opened the door slowly. Natsu had backed all the way up over the stairs. He turned off the lights and the engine and climbed out like he was going to help Zeref put Wally in the bed.

"I'll do it myself. Keep watch."

For the first time that night, Natsu didn't argue. He turned his back on Zeref and looked up and down the street. They stopped once for a passing car but that was all.

Wally was a pain in the ass alive and dead hadn't improved his disposition. He was uncooperative getting into the truck bed. Zeref shoved with all his might. The blanket came loose. He had to stop and fix it. Then he pushed Wally all the way up to the front of the cab then threw in the two shovels he'd grabbed. It seemed rather fortuitous now, taking both.

"Where did those come from?" Natsu asked in a harsh whisper. He was looking at Zeref like he didn't even recognize him. _Like he thinks you planned this_, Zeref realized. That stung a little.

"Next door." Zeref nodded across the street. Their neighbour's shed was still open. "We'll put them back after."

"So no one can add robbery to the charge." Natsu sounded on the verge of hysterical laughter. He did that sometimes when he got nervous. Zeref glowered at him.

"I told you to disappear—"

Natsu shook his head furiously and got in the driver's seat. Zeref gathered up the papers Wally had thrown on the floor, then closed the front door and locked it, and got in the driver's side, too, pushing Natsu over to the other side of the truck.

Natsu looked at the papers between them but didn't ask. Yet.

Zeref drove to the most secluded part of town he knew, turning down a Restricted Access road.

"What is this place?"

"A quarry." Decommissioned years ago. When he was young and would sneak out to the city, Zeref used to come here and throw cherry bombs at red ant nests and watch them boil up out of the ground.

His headlights swung over the pit. There were huge craters in the earth, where excavating machines had dug up stone and sand, but trees had since grown and filled the scars. In between those were garbage bags, contractor type and kitchen garbage type, and large waste items that had years to collect.

In one corner was a red burned-out car without licence plates or VIN numbers. Zeref thought he recognized it as one of the Hondas he'd lifted weeks ago. How many more cars were there just like this one, sprinkled all over the city? _And_ w_hen are you going to get caught_? asked a sharp voice in Zeref's mind.

He shoved it aside.

The headlights touched on an ancient light blue fridge with its door shorn off. Zeref drove towards it slowly. It was perfect for what he needed.

A high, thin noise filled the cab of the truck. Zeref followed it to its source. Natsu was looking between the fridge and the bed of the truck and his chest was rising and falling far too quickly as he imagined what came next. He was going to hyperventilate.

"Breathe," Zeref commanded.

Natsu took in a noisy breath and held it. The one after sounded a little better.

Zeref drove right up to the fridge and shut off the lights and got out. The air felt crisp, assuring him that summer was letting out its dying breath. The moon was huge and silver, hanging low like a fat apple off a wispy branch.

He snagged a shovel from the truck bed and started working, digging the tip into the compacted soil. He felt his broken finger more clearly now. He'd need to wrap it up soon. It made digging slow and painful.

Natsu remained in the car with his phone screen lighting up his face. Zeref entertained tearing open his door and smashing the phone to little pieces, that way Natsu couldn't crack and tell Lucy where he was or what he was doing. That seemed intentionally cruel, though.

After a moment, Natsu exited the truck without his phone and got the other shovel. He set up beside Zeref and dug into the earth as well. That was as far as he got, though. He stood there for several long seconds. Zeref heard the pinching, wheezing noise again and sighed the same time Natsu squeezed out an unintelligible, "Whoishe?"

Zeref kept digging. He hit a rock and winced at the ugly screechy noise it made. Natsu jarred. That seemed to do the trick, he repeated, more calmly, "Who is he?"

_Is, _not _was_. Zeref wasn't going to sugar-coat it for his brother. He skipped right to past-tense and stayed there. "His name _was_ Wally."

Natsu swayed dangerously like he was going to pass out. Zeref resigned himself to finishing the hole himself and carting his brother around as he'd done for Wally, but then Natsu squeezed his shovel tight and got himself under control again. Sometimes, Zeref thought he could adapt to anything.

Natsu asked, "What happened?"

Zeref looked at his brother through a sheaf of sweaty hair that'd fallen over his brow. He could lie. Lies were easier and kinder. But Natsu deserved to know the stakes of the game him and Lucy were playing. "He came looking for you, Natsu."

Zeref kept shovelling while Natsu struggled to understand. "For what?"

Zeref scraped another rock. He got his shovel under it and hefted it out. "He had questions about credit card receipts from a motel across town."

Natsu's eyes moved back to the truck, where the papers still sat on the bench seat.

"I told him to fuck off, he wanted you, though." He relived slamming Wally's head into the floor, still righteous and furious. How fucking dare he come into their apartment with his fucking accusations and his fucking gun, like he could force Natsu to do a goddamn thing he wanted just _because _Jude Heartfilia didn't like the way he fucked his daughter?

Zeref dug the shovel in extra far, imagining he was shoving it through Wally's throat. He took out an extra-large scoop of dirt and was throwing it to the side just as headlights cut through the trees. Zeref straightened, prepared to do whatever he needed to keep his and Natsu's secret safe.

The headlights stopped only partway up the dirt road. There was a clanging of metal, leading Zeref to believe it was a contractor dumping his garbage material rather than paying to take it to the dump.

It went on for twenty minutes at least, then the shrieking of metal stopped, a door slammed closed, and an engine garbled. The driver turned out onto the road and the quarry was quiet again.

After that, Natsu started digging with vigour, working twice as fast as Zeref. He wasn't burned out, tired or too skinny. With his help, Wally's grave was dug in half an hour. He hopped into the back of the truck, too, when all was ready and took Wally by the shoulders. Zeref took his feet and together, they got Wally off the back of the truck and into his hole in the ground. He thudded down with finality.

Natsu returned to the truck and got the credit card receipts. He lit them with a lighter he took from his pocket and together, he and Zeref watched them burn. When they were too small to hold any longer, he let them flutter down with Wally.

Zeref waited until the papers fizzled out, unreadable nubs, then set about shovelling the dirt over Wally. He was meticulous, getting any stray bits of dirt and using his hands to smooth out the rest and the shovels to tamp it down so it didn't look suspicious. Then he had Natsu help him tip over the fridge to cover the mess. His finger protested every bit of abuse. It was swelling and going purple. Zeref grit his teeth and ignored it.

They loaded the truck again without standing over the grave silently and reminiscing on what they'd done.

They didn't talk on the way home. Zeref watched out of the corner of his eye as Natsu deleted Lucy's contact information from his phone and got rid of her on all his social media accounts. He even deleted any pictures she sent him, tame and lascivious alike. He undid the window and chucked the motel room key into the ditch, too. Zeref wanted to tell him that he shouldn't bother, _fuck _Jude and _fuck _Jellal and anyone else they sent their way, they'd take care of. But he knew Natsu didn't want to hear his brother would kill again if it meant keeping him safe and giving him what he wanted. People got antsy about that stuff.

_You should be, too_, Zeref reminded himself. _It's not right. Nothing you do is fucking right. _He felt all his abnormalities bearing down on him like he was a piece of aluminium and they were the vice, bending him out of shape. _And now you have to clean up the house. You have to clean up your brother. You have to teach him how to live with a secret like this._

Except, Zeref didn't know how to live with it, either. It's not like people put out self-help books about living with covering up your first murder.

They pulled into the parking lot behind the movie store. Zeref was relieved to see it was empty. Sometimes, people just showed up at the apartment and most of the time, he didn't mind, but imagine, sending Ultear and Merdy away, or Angel, or August, or Erik, if he came looking for product. Imagine, explaining his bloody hands. Imagine, if he drapes weren't pulled over completely and they could peek inside. Imagine if they _knew. _

_You'd have to take care of them, too._

More blood. More secrets. More ways he wouldn't be like everyone else. More ways Natsu would end up being just like him.

Doctor Raquel had taught Zeref how to recognize a spiral. He was in one, for sure. He popped open his glovebox and riffled around in it. He was just shy of yanking everything out all over the truck when he found what he was looking for—a little bump of cocaine. His _just in case_. He didn't know just in case of_ what_ when he saved it months ago, but it turned out it was just in case he murdered someone and was freaking out and needed something to focus him.

He almost laughed. He snorted the bump off his hand and didn't leave anything for his brother. He let it burn in his sinuses until he felt it spread to his blood. His vision sharpened and his hearing heightened. His finger stopped burning so intensely, and—his favourite feeling—energy coursed through his veins. It was going to be hard coming back off this but maybe it was worth it if he could think and protect his family.

"Get the cleaning supplies. We need to wipe down the truck and the apartment, then we need to shower and clean out the drains, too."

Natsu was staring at him blankly. "With what?"

"Bleach," Zeref decided. It wouldn't get rid of the blood completely, but it would destroy the DNA thoroughly enough that no one would be able to tell who it belonged to. That was good enough for him.

Natsu gathered everything together while Zeref returned the shovels, dirtier now than they'd ever been in their life. When Zeref returned, Natsu helped him destroy every bit of evidence. They worked their hands raw and wrecked the upholstery in the truck. Zeref didn't care, it wasn't ever very nice anyway. The whole thing took hours.

He let Natsu shower first once he decided they were done, and he was coming off his high. He got in afterwards and watched the remainder of Wally's blood sluice down the drain. He still didn't feel bad. Was he supposed to, or was this natural? For the first time in years, he wished he could ask Doctor Raquel.

There was a first aid kit under the sink. He dug a finger splint out of it from the last time he'd punched someone in the face and broken his finger. It hurt like a sonofabitch getting it on. He popped three Advil and two Tylenol to help.

Natsu was in his room when Zeref emerged with a towel around his waist. He left him to it, going for a package of cigarettes on the table. He took it to his own room and fell back on his bed dressed only in his damp towel. He smoked while he relived ending Wally and dashing the shovel into the dirt.

Sometime after the sun had risen, Zeref heard pounding on the door. His paranoia had him imagining it was someone coming to tell him they knew his secrets but when he got his revolver from beneath his bed and sat up, squinting out of his open door into the living room, he saw the golden glow of Lucy's hair as she tried to peek through the blankets Zeref used as drapes. He considered treating her the way he treated Wally. There was no way Natsu could fuck up then. He knew he never would, though. That wouldn't be what made Natsu happy.

The knocking stopped only to start again a moment later. This time, it was coming from the back of the apartment. Lucy had moved on to knock on Natsu's window. Zeref lifted himself up to watch out his own window. Sunny, bright Lucy was a storm cloud of tears as she tried to get Natsu's attention.

A car pulled up behind her and her cousin got out. He took her by the shoulders and yanked her back forcefully. She pushed him off at first but then she went totally limp, sagging into his arms and sobbing.

Zeref waited patiently for his brother to do something stupid but Natsu's window remained closed and so did his door. He wouldn't go to her. Zeref told himself that was _good_. Coupled with that and Fernandez's missing man, it might have even been enough.


	9. Chapter 9

There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.

* * *

People were like unmoored boats in rough water. If you didn't pay attention, they just slipped away. And sometimes, even when you were watching, if you didn't reach out and grab them.

Natsu was like that. A ghost ship, drifting in and out of range, and Zeref let him. He didn't know how to stop him from staying out all night. He didn't know how to keep him from sleeping all day. And he didn't know if he _should _because, honestly, it was easier to let Natsu self-medicate than to talk about what they did or give him the help that he needed. Even though he was destroying himself.

He came home smelling like sickly sweet smoke, his cheeks were hollow, and his skin was pale. He filled his time with Brandish, not Lucy, and more than once, Zeref caught him driving out to the quarry to look at where they'd stashed Wally. He knew because when he was feeling restless, he'd walk out there himself and imagine the cool calm of the grave they dug. Maybe other killers revisited the crime scene because they wanted to relive it, but Zeref _lived _in it and just wanted to feel the quiet.

His finger healed, though it was knobby and slightly crooked. He hadn't set it properly and now it was too late to go back unless he broke it again. Sometimes, sitting on the couch, he'd grab his knuckle and try. He'd get to a certain point, though, and his gusto would fade out. It wasn't that he was afraid of hurting himself—he'd spent his lifetime matching Natsu's injuries for investigative reasons and knew what to expect from pain—he just had no purpose.

To spite the disruptions in his life, Zeref tried to keep some semblance of a schedule. He'd wake around nine, shower, eat, clean. Natsu would stumble in around ten-thirty from the dingy abandoned restaurant he used to smoke H in with Brandish (Ultear always seemed to know more than anyone and in between taking off her clothes and putting them back on, she'd tell him) and Zeref would make a half-hearted attempt at feeding him breakfast. Most of the time, Natsu would refuse. Sometimes, though, he ate. Sometimes, he'd bring it all back up again, but at least he tried.

The cold weather turned warm, and then hot enough that Zeref felt like he was melting as he left the house to meet August for a job late one night. He was shedding his jacket and not really paying much attention to his surroundings, so it was a surprise when he knocked his shin into something hard and metal someone had dropped in the corner of the parking lot.

The streetlamp had gone out two weeks ago and the city hadn't fixed it yet. Zeref pulled out his phone and used the flashlight to see by. The light illuminated the stainless edge of a mini-fridge. The door was cracked open an inch and a cloying, sweet smell was drifting up from the inside. It wasn't old sandwiches. This had the scent of putrefaction. Raw, rotting meat.

Zeref turned off his flashlight and looked around the parking lot for any shadows that looked unnatural and listened _hard _for breathing. Anything to indicate another's presence. Only when he determined he was alone did he nudge open the door with the tip of his boot.

Wally's head looked up at him. His neck had been severed and messily, too, so long, jagged pieces of flesh hung between the metal bars of the tiny fridge, Grey skin sagged on the edge of sharp cheekbones, as if any second, it'd slough off. The cool spring temperatures had been kind to him but now that summer was rolling in, he was falling apart.

Someone had taken his sunglasses and put them back on his face, but the tinted glass was broken. Zeref remembered picking the pieces up from his hallway and carefully disposing of them on random roads so the evidence was spread out and difficult to find.

Wally's eyes were open, and he was staring straight ahead between Zeref's feet. Somehow, that was more disturbing than if he was looking right up at him.

There was a piece of paper stuffed in his mouth. Zeref plucked it out and unfolded it. There were spots where decomposition had stained it and made the pen almost illegible. _Amateurs keep the head._

Zeref replaced the note, closed the door with the toe of his boot and went to his truck. Inside was a pair of work gloves he started keeping for _just in case_s like this. He wore them to pick up the fridge, careful to tip it so whatever juices were inside sloshed to the back and not over his shoes.

He borrowed his neighbour's shovel again drove in no particular direction for an hour until he found a small, unassumed road that led to a place that looked remote and desolate. The truck rattled over bumps and Wally's head jarred in the truck bed. Zeref kept glancing out the window to make sure he was still secured. He didn't want to spend another night scrubbing the truck out with bleach.

He stopped when the road ran out and then walked for twenty minutes through a forest, awkwardly juggling the fridge and the shovel. He was sweating and bruised, bleeding and exhausted when he finally found a spot of swampy ground that was solid enough to dig in but soft enough to swallow whatever it was fed.

He dug the hole as deep as possible then kicked Wally and the fridge inside and covered him up again.

Three in the morning was creeping up by the time he made it back to his truck. His phone was lit up on the bench seat. August had been calling him for hours. Zeref turned his phone off.

He reversed his truck out of the road and back onto the deserted highway and didn't stop again until he was back at his apartment.

All he wanted to do was go inside, shower, and sleep, but he paused just outside his truck.

Smoke was drifting around the side of his apartment building, catching the streetlight and making it blaze. Zeref inhaled deeply and identified cigarettes. He didn't question it further. Not after Wally's abrupt and ungraceful reappearance. He grabbed the tire iron out of the Dakota and marched toward the source.

He didn't think of witnesses, it was still too early in the morning for that kind of thing, he only thought of the deep-seated anger he felt. If it was Jellal or Jude Heartfilia waiting for him, he was going to destroy them and think about the consequences later.

Cold iron bit into Zeref's hand and the smell of it was in his nose and for the second time in less than six months, he was running _hot _when normally, he was cold, cold, cold. He walked so fast, he wasn't confident his next steps were going to be coordinated, and with every breath he drew, his adrenaline spiked.

He rounded the corner of his building with the pipe half raised.

Pale light from a phone screen limned pale hair.

Angel looked up from her texts, then between Zeref and the tire iron as if she didn't understand what it was or what he was doing with it. They stood that way for a tense moment, with Zeref's heart throbbing in his ears and his body screaming at him to follow through with it anyway because he didn't ever get this fucking wound up for nothing.

Then Angel blinked her big blue eyes and most of Zeref's fire extinguished. He lowered the half-cocked pipe. "What are you doing here?" Hadn't he told her to fuck off? He couldn't remember now; they were so on and off and his head was such a fucking mess. Just soup warmed in the microwave, so some parts were scalding, and others were icy and the middle ground where he was supposed to be warm just wasn't there at all.

"I came to talk."

He felt suddenly exhausted. "I don't have time. I need to get cleaned up."

She looked lost. Angel _never _looked lost. She always had a destination in mind. He didn't like it when he thought he had people figured out but then they started acting weird. He found himself asking questions like, _did she see the mini-fridge? _And, _did she see who left it? _And, _or did someone tell her what was inside?_

Zeref took out his keys. "Come on."

Angel looked at the iron he still held, uncertainty flashing across her face for an instant. She might have liked his unpredictability but in the safe way that people preferred. Where they could watch him be terrible and cold and inhuman to other people but feel exempt. The truth was, no one was exempt. Cold was cold. Cruel was cruel, and he had no favourites despite what Angel and Ultear liked to think.

Zeref tightened his grip on his weapon, then remembered his perfectly crafted façade. He needed control and to have control, he needed to present himself in a certain way. He made his muscles relax and dropped the iron beside the broken concrete steps where it clanged and rattled before falling still. Angel jumped but pretended that she didn't.

Zeref unlocked his door and pushed it open and Angel followed him inside. The apartment was dark and Natsu's door was open. He was out again. Or still. Zeref couldn't remember if he saw him that morning. All his thoughts from earlier in the day felt scrambled and the only thing that seemed to matter was Wally finding his way back to Zeref.

"I need to shower," Zeref said and went to the washroom without waiting for a reply.

He ran the water so hot; his skin was red when he was through. He wanted to burn his clothes, too but needed to wait until Angel was gone so he didn't have to answer any questions. If she did start pummeling him, he didn't think he could keep the lie in. He might just laugh it out like a crazy person.

Jellal knew his secret. Which Zeref _figured. _You didn't hire a man to rough up your cousin's boyfriend and _not _get suspicious when he went missing. Zeref had been trolling the news, though, and hadn't seen much on Wally, other than his girlfriend coming on tear-streaked, imploring people to come forward with information. Nothing ever came of it, though, so he was ashamed to admit rotten Wally's head caught him by surprise. He _always _prepared for shit to go bad and he just _hadn't _been. And he didn't know what was going on, if it was drug withdrawal or depression or if he was just fucking cracking apart because he hadn't been taking his medication, but his thoughts weren't acting like puzzle pieces he knew how to put together, they were just scattered all over, mismatching and no way to fix them.

Zeref left his soiled clothes on the bathroom floor. There was no need to touch them any more than necessary. He dressed in sweatpants and a tank top and came back into the living room to find Angel on the couch playing with the strap of her purse. She'd composed herself a bit and had adopted a stubborn look to her.

Zeref went to the kitchen to scare up some food. There was tuna in the fridge that he'd mixed for Natsu two days ago. He pulled it out and took the entire bowl with him back to the living room. He leaned against the wall he'd cleaned Wally's head from and cocked a brow in Angel's direction. "Well?"

She took in a deep, deep breath. "I'm late."

"I guess you better get going then," he said around his fork. The tuna was soggy now, just the way he preferred it.

"No, you idiot," she said with an eye roll. "I'm _late._"

It sounded the same way. "Okay."

"For my period," she said clearly. "I'm fucking late. No period. For a week."

"Okay."

"I think I might be pregnant."

Zeref took another carefully measured bite without responding because, in this, he had control.

"Did you hear me?"

He chewed carefully before swallowing, thinking, thinking.

"Say something, you fuck."

Alright. "Did you test?"

Angel cast her eyes to the ground. "I got one, but I haven't done it yet."

His frustration welled up. "Why even come here, then?" He had no control over the snarl in his voice.

Her eyebrows pinched together. "Because I didn't get this way on my own and thought I didn't want to find out on my own, either, okay?"

Zeref threw the half-eaten tuna bowl on the table. "We used condoms."

"Did we?" she asked in a sharp way that poked holes through his certainty.

"Didn't we?"

"Not always."

"Well, why the hell not?" He was yelling without consciously deciding to.

"I don't know." Angel's cool exterior cracked and suddenly, her eyes were wet.

Zeref breathed in, and then again. He almost felt like he did when he ended Wally, everything was loud and very real; his thoughts were tumbling over one another, tangling more and more. Instead of making beds for dead men, he made them for a red-cheeked baby he wasn't even sure he _could _like.

"Don't freak out," Angel said. "If you do—I'll freak out. And I can't. I've been keeping it together all day and I just…" She trailed off.

Zeref took another breath. "What do you want me to do?"

Angel was squeezing her purse so hard, Zeref was afraid for the straps. "Just—"

"What? Come into the bathroom with you while you piss on a stick?"

"Yes!" Angel blurted.

Zeref never considered himself a pillar. At least, not one anyone ever wanted to lean on, he was rusty and rotten. But Angel looked ready to throw all her weight on him and hope for the best. He sighed and held out his hand. Angel looked at it for a moment like she wasn't sure what to do with it. He was just about to drop it when she took it and let him help her stand.

She took out a box that said _Clear Blue _and left her purse on the couch. Zeref led her to the bathroom and left the door open. She looked at him expectantly when he hesitated around the sink and he stepped further into the room, past the filthy clothes he'd reburied Wally in, so he was sitting on the damp edge of the bathtub. The same bathtub he'd sliced open his wrist in. The same bathtub he'd slept in when Natsu was passed out on the floor. It'd seen a lot of things.

Angel didn't look at him and didn't talk as she opened the pregnancy test and pulled out the instructions. Zeref let her read them over though he thought she should know all about them, given her profession.

There was a cricket outside; it croaked, putting Zeref on edge. He resisted shaking his legs to expel some energy.

Finally, Angel was ready. She turned around and pulled down her pants. She put the applicator between her legs. Zeref tried not to think too much over the sound of her peeing. He didn't want to put a ton of pressure on the outcome of her test. It wasn't like pregnancies were final. Things could be done about them.

_If she wants it done._

He had a hard time imagining Angel as a mother and wanting that car seat life. He didn't _know, _though. Nine months from now, he might be throwing a baby blanket over the bleach stains he'd made while he was trying to erase a man from the world. He couldn't keep his mouth shut anymore. "Thoughts on abortion?"

"I'm not even done pissing yet," she said dryly.

"Yes or no?"

"I don't know." She grabbed toilet paper and wiped and left the test sitting in the sink.

Zeref watched the offending piece of plastic. "How long until that's ready?"

"A few minutes," she said.

They sat quietly for about thirty seconds. "We should get an abortion. If it's positive."

Angel fixed her pants and closed the toilet seat. She sat on top. "I don't know."

_I. Don't. Know. _

A screaming child _couldn't _be his life.

"Do you want to know what I was doing tonight?" Zeref asked suddenly.

Angel had been staring at the wall behind his head; she matched his gaze now. Whatever she saw in his eyes made her face go carefully blank. "No."

"Have you been watching the news lately?" he asked, ignoring her.

"No."

Except, she was lying. He could smell it like a shark smelled blood in the water. "There's been a girl on there. She's looking for her boyfriend. The police don't give a fuck, though, and she won't find him. Unless she's shown where he is. Which might happen if I don't figure out a way to get this asshole to stop fucking with me and Natsu."

Silence.

"Do you want to know why?"

"No."

Zeref ignored her again. "He came here looking for Natsu one night, a few weeks ago and—"

Angel abruptly stood and grabbed the test out of the sink. It was a tactic to get him to shut up and it worked. He watched her for long seconds, monitoring the set to her muscles, and the exact moment her shoulders dropped. He couldn't tell, though, if that was relief or resignation.

"What is it?" Zeref asked when Angel _still _hadn't spoken and he could take it no more.

Angel turned on him and held up the negative sign. "Not pregnant."

Zeref wished he could say all his nerves left him at once, but he was still so spun, he could scream. He could break something.

"Don't look so happy," Angel said.

"It was a stupid fucking mistake and it never should have happened, so no, I'm not fucking happy and I'm not going to _look _happy for scraping by it." And he'd all but told her he'd killed someone, all so she could see anything that came from him deserved aborting.

"Zeref…"

The front door was hammered upon, cutting Angel off. Zeref's blood pressure spiked so high, he had a sudden, flaring migraine. He pushed past Angel and stalked into the living room. He looked out the window before yanking open the door and saw a cruiser. He would have pretended he wasn't home after that but the man standing on his front step shifted and he realized that not only was he carrying someone, Zeref recognized his brother's favourite pair of Converse sneakers.

"Fucking hell." He pulled open the door and Gildarts peered in. He was on duty, the radio on his hip was chattering away about a domestic on Barton Avenue. Gildarts didn't respond to it, though. He only had eyes for Zeref.

"Where did you find him?"

"Someone called in and said they almost hit a drunk guy stumbling out into traffic," Gildarts announced.

Natsu rolled his head on his shoulders and found Zeref. His face remained blank as if not everything in his mind was buffering at the right speed.

"Thanks for bringing him home." And not to a jail cell, he left unsaid, but he thought Gildarts understood.

"Come on, kid. I'm not carrying you over the threshold." Gildarts crouched down so Natsu could get his feet under him. Natsu stumbled dangerously. Zeref grabbed his jacket. It was wet in spots. He was really grossed out at first until he realized that he didn't smell vinegary like vomit; Natsu had been rolling in a puddle or something.

Zeref tugged the jacket off his shoulders and pointed him in the direction of the couch. Natsu wobbled that way as if on autopilot. Zeref put the jacket on one of the wall hooks. He couldn't stop himself from checking to see if he'd missed any of Wally's blood, no matter how much he _knew _he'd been thorough.

"I found this on him." Gildarts held up a filthy pipe, bringing Zeref back to the conversation.

Zeref glared at the offending piece of glass. "Fuck."

"He's been using for a while," Gildarts said in the concerned voice of an adult that cared about people, not a police officer just trying to do his job. He'd always been good to Natsu. Zeref never appreciated just _how _good, though. "You had to know."

"I knew he was on something," Zeref admitted. "I just didn't know what." He'd suspected, but he was too ashamed to admit he'd thought it was kinder to let Natsu spiral.

Gildarts was careful to keep his judgement—and doubt—carefully concealed. "He needs help."

"I'll take care of it."

"_Real_ help."

"I'll take care of it," Zeref said more firmly.

Gildarts acted like he hadn't heard Zeref. "He can come to my place if he needs to. I like having him around."

"Thanks for bringing him home." Zeref closed the door and Gildarts didn't stop him. He turned and found Angel perched on the end of the couch with Natsu's wrist in her hand. She was making small circles with the tip of her nail and Natsu was looking at her with wide, reverent eyes. She was whispering to him and held out her hand. Natsu reached into his pocket, no doubt for drugs. Zeref felt his migraine worsen.

"Get out, Angel."

She startled like she'd forgotten he was there. "Out? I just got here."

"Get. Out." All his patience, all his goodwill, was used up. He was just a frayed wire now, sparking.

Angel stayed sedentary for another second and he thought she was going to challenge him again. Then she pushed her lips into a thin line and stood. She shoved her feet into expensive high heels that Zeref hadn't even noticed before and left, slamming the door so hard, the large bay window shook.

Zeref whirled on his dazed brother. "What's the matter with you?"

Natsu blinked to clear his thoughts. "Nothing" His voice was slow and his speech slurred, making Zeref angrier.

"Really? Because when Gildarts gets a call that some fucking kook is wandering down Main and he shows up and it's you, that says to me you're missing a few marbles."

Natsu found the wall easier to look at. "What the fuck do you care? I didn't hurt anyone."

He couldn't rightly tell his brother he cared about the police showing up to their place the very night he'd had a head delivered to him. Natsu would lose his mind. Zeref went with the next best thing. The expected thing. "You could have hurt yourself. And what if it wasn't Gildarts that answered that call? You could have been arrested—"

"For being stoned?" Natsu _did _look at him now and rolled his eyes.

Zeref marched across the room and pulled apart Natsu's pockets without his permission, pushing Natsu's hands aside when he resisted. He found what he was looking for almost immediately. Gildarts had taken the pipe but not the drugs. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have. Zeref cut him some slack—it wasn't every day you picked up your old neighbour's kid for public intoxication. "For this, fuck stick."

Natsu came suddenly alive. He stood and reached for the drug, oozing panic. Sober Zeref was faster and pushed Natsu back roughly. He fell into the musty couch with a noise of protest and tried to get up again. Zeref forced him down by the shoulder and leaned in so they were nose to nose. "I'm throwing this the fuck out, and if I see you with any again—" He trailed off, trying to temper the anger that'd gotten him into so much trouble lately.

"Then what?" Natsu asked, oblivious to Zeref's struggle.

Zeref remembered the boy he'd built snow forts with, the kid brother he'd take to the movies, the one that'd been obsessed with astronomy once he'd realized Lucy loved it. The one that wore the dog tooth around his neck and never took it off for anything. His brother. He breathed deeply and felt human again. "Just don't do it, Natsu. We don't fuck with heroin, remember?"

Natsu just stared.

"I'm going to take that as a 'Yeah, Zeref, I remember.'" He took the baggy into the washroom and only then remembered Angel's pregnancy test in the sink and his clothes on the floor. He flushed the drugs and put the pregnancy test back in its box. He threw that in the trash, along with his clothes, and took it all to the dumpster behind the apartment. It was the shallow, metal kind and it was empty of near everything.

Zeref doused his bag in lighter fluid and erased the evidence of his shitty night. When it was nothing but ashes, he came back in. Natsu was asleep on the couch. Zeref pulled a blanket over him and left him there, thinking he deserved the crooked neck he'd have in the morning.

He turned his phone back on so he could have an alarm in the morning. Angel had texted him since she'd left, saying things like, _I want to talk about what happened._ But what the fuck was there to say? They thought they made a mistake, but they _didn't_. They were home free. He silenced notifications from her and dropped into bed. Every time he closed his eyes, though, he saw Wally in that fucking mini-fridge, staring past his legs. He saw the inevitability of Jellal's message and no simple way around it.


	10. Chapter 10

I found an entrance to escape into the dark

* * *

Two weeks passed without Jellal and without Angel, lulling Zeref into a state of artificial relaxation.

Five days a week, Zeref pretended he went to work, rising early and wandering to August's apartment where he'd either rest in the stairwell until a more reasonable time, or he'd go to the nearby park and lay on the benches that spread out beneath the birch trees and watch the sky. He did that less often—people gave you strange looks when you showed up without a dog and without a child.

When the sun sank and the streetlights came on, he went out with August, scoped new marks, and then took the cars to sell. He was doing alright with them. Keeping his head above water with the money he made. He was able to take a couple hundred a week and stash it in between the pages of Duma Key for rainy days, of which there seemed to be many. On occasion, he'd open the book and notice Natsu had some rainy days of his own. The stash was never depleted completely, but he'd taken a few bills here and there. Zeref didn't know how to ask what he was doing with the money, so he didn't. It wasn't that hard to suss out anyway, not when Natsu came home smelling of sweet smoke and looked around with hollow eyes. He was supposed to say something, he knew, but growing up, his family always just let the dog lie until it died, and he never quite knew how to break that habit.

On the two days Zeref allowed himself off—Friday and Saturday, because people were out late those nights and it was more difficult to alleviate them of their cars—he still rose early, so he didn't fall into any bad habits.

This Saturday, he sat like a lump at the scratched kitchen table, bleary-eyed and dazed, thinking about drugs—methamphetamines, specifically, and how they could make him feel less dead—and staring at the wall where Wally's blood had splattered. He could almost see the pattern still. Some parts were darker than others.

He considered burning his apartment to ditch all the evidence. Acting like there was bad wiring in his fridge or dropping a cigarette on the carpet and letting it smoulder. That way, Jellal could leave Wally's feet, arms, torso, whatever the _fuck _he wanted, and it would never come back to Zeref. Or Natsu.

It was a great idea with one fatal flaw—he didn't have content insurance and his apartment wasn't even legal, technically, which meant it was cheap. He'd just be out a lot of money and an affordable place to live.

And nothing spelled guilty like a burned-out building.

He huffed, blowing away the steam from his morning coffee.

Natsu's door swung open. Zeref sat straighter and watched someone unexpected exit.

It'd been some time since he'd seen Mirajane Strauss. Natsu used to play with her baby sister, Lisanna until he and Zeref moved to the city. Lisanna stopped hanging out as much, Natsu met Lucy, and then one morning, Lisanna disappeared for good.

People whispered that she'd met someone and run away with them—it was what young girls did, wasn't it? But then they found her floating like flotsam in a stormwater pond near Clover, days dead, and they realized something much more sinister had happened. They never found her killer.

Mira had changed a lot since the days Natsu and Lisanna used to build tree forts out of cardboard. Taller, thicker through her hips and heaver in her chest, less awkward. Still in black, though. Her dark nail polish was chipped and what was left of her makeup after last night was bold.

She didn't look at Zeref as she went into the washroom and tried to scrub the night from her face.

Zeref drank his coffee, thinking. Mira wasn't Brandish. She wasn't Ultear, either. She had issues of her own, but there was a thread of stable in her. One day when she wasn't as sad, she was going to get her shit together and she was going to have a job and probably a house, with kids in the yard. A dog, somewhere, was waiting for her to pick it out of the pound and bring it home.

She wasn't a really nice girl, like Lucy. But that was good. The Dragneels weren't a really nice family, were they? Really nice families didn't bury bodies in dumps or smoke heroin to forget about it. Mirajane was the kind of girl that could scrape into their lives and survive the fallout because she had fallout of her own.

Zeref offered her coffee when she remerged, fresh-faced.

Mira shook her head and left without a word. Which didn't at all destroy Zeref's fantasy of his brother moving on from Lucy.

Zeref pondered for another moment, thoughts picking through the possibilities and the ways he could manipulate the situation. The first thing that had to go was the drugs. And the most painless way to do that was to cut off Natsu's supply.

Zeref picked up his phone and went outside to call Brandish. She answered on the second ring. "You don't usually call me."

True, he didn't like Brandish. Maybe she was a little too much like him. Too blank, but not even trying to hide it. Zeref tried to keep the conversation short and sweet. "I want you to stop selling to Natsu."

Brandish got quiet.

"I mean it," Zeref emphasized. This was step one into ensuring he _moved on_, from addictive things like heroin and Lucy Heartfilia.

"If he doesn't get it from me, he'll find someone else."

"That's good, Brandish. It'll be someone else I put in the ground, then. Right?" He could do it, too. The thought didn't make him nervous or scared. There was just coldness, and beneath that, the bubbling anger that always seemed to linger.

Quiet again. "What am I supposed to tell him?"

"Anything, if you sell it right."

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter what I say. He's not going to take no for an answer. You know that, right? He loves H."

Everyone that touched H loved it. That was the problem. "I've been nice about this, Brandish, but you've got my little brother addicted to fucking garbage. So, figure something out to help me fix it before I let you know just how angry I am." His palm was aching; he was digging his nails too far into his skin. Zeref breathed and loosened his death-grip. "Tell me you understand." He wouldn't have Natsu's tenuous recovery sabotaged by his love of destructive behaviour.

Brandish suddenly sounded nervous. "Alright."

Zeref ended the call and shook out his palm. Runners of blood dripped all the way to his fingertips. He sighed and lit a cigarette. He sat on the concrete steps and thought of the night he'd met and killed Wally. He'd been sitting just like this, and he'd been feeling just as dead in the head. He would take care of Brandish in gruesome ways if she didn't do what he asked, he knew it. And wasn't that more than a little scary? You didn't know quite what you were capable of until you'd done it, and now that he'd done the worst he could possibly do, nothing else seemed all that bad anymore.

Distantly, he knew that was a dangerous way to think.

Zeref thought of the pills Doctor Raquel had prescribed him. He still had some in the cupboard. He could take them. Maybe it would soften the ice in his mind and make the deplorable seem half as bad as it actually was.

_And what if when you took them, they stopped you from doing what you need to do? _

He'd continue the way he was, he decided. Cold and calculating, on the verge of violence, was better than being fuzzy and flirting with the idea of being just like everyone else.

* * *

When Natsu left that day to go cause whatever general havoc it was he caused when he was out of the house, Zeref trespassed into his room to complete the second part of his plan.

Usually, if he ventured this far, Natsu was hanging off his side, fucked up or passed out, and Zeref was putting him to bed. The summer sunlight streaming through the window turned everything on its head. It looked ingenue without the haze of alcohol clinging to skin or incomprehensive mutterings. Sad sighs filled with _Lucy_. This room held its share of secrets, though, he knew it.

Zeref glanced around quickly. Band posters, a clock, socks and boxers on the floor. A plate on the dresser from whatever it was Natsu ate for lunch. Headphones, the wires all fucked up and tangled together dripping off his nightstand. A pack of condoms. Zeref smiled grimly and hoped Natsu never had an Angel moment, sitting on the tub and spewing almost confessions about burying men in dumps while a girl pissed on a stick, hopefully thinking about the future she was considering choosing for herself.

He went to the bed and lifted the mattress. Natsu was simple to the point of innocence when he was a kid and as an adult, not much had changed. Zeref found a spread-out stack of porn mags that looked like they hadn't been touched in years, and, much more recently disturbed, a thick, brown brick of heroin and a filthy pipe.

Zeref took both, flushing one down the toilet in smaller bricks, and the other he took outside and smashed into a thousand fine grains of dirty glass. He kicked it across the pavement, so it wasn't as obvious.

He went back in and made himself another coffee, feeling satisfied.

* * *

Ultear sat on Zeref's couch and watched him arrange the shoes by the door, covering up the spots where Wally had expired. Sometimes, he liked to do that, so he didn't just sit there, staring at it. It seemed to help Natsu, too, who Zeref had caught cleaning the walls at least once a week.

They'd sat in silence since she'd gotten there. Zeref thought she just wanted to be near him, but then Ultear spoke and he realized she was trying to think of a way to broach a difficult subject. "Angel didn't really think she was pregnant, eh?"

Stunned, Zeref looked up from his scuffed work boots. "What are you talking about?"

"She _was_ late," Ultear explained, pretending he wasn't trying to be obtusely ignorant. "But only by a few days. And just before that, she was trying to figure out ways to get you to talk to her again. It's a little too convenient if you ask me."

Zeref rubbed his palms on his jeans and reopened his cuts. "She was freaked out."

"Was she really? Or is she just a great actress?"

Zeref narrowed his eyes. "How do you know so much, huh?"

Ultear lifted her shoulder. "It wasn't that hard to piece together. Angel literally told everyone she might be pregnant, and you were the only one that could be the father."

"Why the fuck would she do that?" He couldn't tell if he was mad or just confused.

"She thinks she's special when you fuck her." Ultear looked at him out of the corner of her eye, daring him to say she wasn't—hoping, he figured, if he knew Ultear half as well as he thought he did.

He wouldn't give her satisfaction either way—if he agreed, Angel wasn't special, that'd mean Ultear wasn't, either, and she'd take off. That wasn't okay. He didn't want to be alone, not completely. Though, if he said Angel _was _special, Ultear might think that meant she was, too.

It was complicated.

Ultear's shoulders dropped when she realized he wasn't going to rise to the bait. She sunk into the couch and stared at him in the way that Ultear usually did when she wanted something.

Zeref took his time, covering Wally's imagined mess, then taking some dishes to the kitchen. He grabbed paper towel off the counter and mopped up the blood on his hand from where he'd opened his palm again.

Then he went to Ultear.

She was still where he left her. He stood over her and pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her. She didn't clutch him back, Ultear was still waiting for the day he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. Zeref gave her a taste, cupping her face like a lover might and letting out a short breath tainted with the sound of desperateness, before leaning back and undoing his pants. Ultear's eyes were feverish as he settled against her lips, stiff. She opened her mouth and massaged down his length with her warm, wet tongue.

Zeref threaded his fingers through her hair. Of all the girls that'd come to worship him for one twisted reason or another, she was the most devout. He loved that about her, and he hated it in equal parts. Would she get scared the way Angel did if he talked about Wally? Or would she turn that insane gleam on him, the one he'd sometimes glimpse in her eyes, and tell him what he already knew—Wally deserved it.

He felt his eyes once again drawn to the spot Wally had died. He closed his lids and tried to focus all his energy on _this_. On sliding against Ultear's tongue, on her hands on his hips, on her hurried breaths and small protests when he went too deep. Wally was a thing of the past and had no business haunting him.

But he was.

Zeref felt like he was going mad.

* * *

There was another week of relative peace before Angel knocked on his door again.

The sun was setting, and he was packing a pipe, thinking about the job he and August were going to do the next day when he saw her white-blonde hair move in front of the large bay window.

He considered ignoring her completely when she knocked, but Angel was a walking disaster and Zeref had never in his life been able to avoid those. Doctor Raquel used to tell him he craved the destruction because he craved attention it afforded him. He thought all psychiatrists said stuff like that, though, when they didn't understand what they were studying.

"It's open."

The doorknob turned and late-day sunlight filtered into the apartment. Angel followed behind it, smelling like perfume and cigarettes. She took her time, removing her shoes and pushing them up against the wall, right where a large chunk of Wally's brain had splatted. Zeref looked at them, imagining they were splashing in blood. Imagining Angel knew. Because he'd had a big fucking mouth.

"Hi."

Zeref looked away from the shoes and into Angel's blue eyes. They were the exact same colour as Fairy Lake under a July sun. A lot of men would lose their minds over them. He'd seen them tripping over her. Not him, though. Nothing pushed through his calm unless it was anger.

"What do you want?"

She folded her leg beneath her on the couch and propped her arm up on the back. Her breasts pushed together pleasingly. She'd gained some weight back. There were still hollows beneath her eyes, though, that makeup couldn't totally cover.

"I missed you."

Zeref packed his bowl more authoritatively and repeated, "What do you want, Angel?"

"You've been ignoring me for weeks."

"I've been ignoring _everyone_."

"Ultear says she's seen you."

Why was Ultear always the root of the problem? "Not really."

"So that's not her jacket?" Angel hiked her thumb toward the door where Ultear's white and black jacket hung.

Zeref cracked his pipe, he pushed down on it so hard. The glass lifted and sliced the pad of his thumb. Blood, warm and thick, dripped into the pipe. "It is."

Anger flashed through her eyes. "You just told me you hadn't seen her, though."

She was trying to catch him in a lie but Zeref didn't care for the games. "I think we need to straighten some things out. Ultear gets that I don't have time for anyone in my life, fulltime." Mostly. And if she didn't, she didn't try to force him to be something he wasn't.

Angel watched the blood slide over his thumb. "Just part-time party fucks?"

"Basically."

She caught his eyes. "Or did you get scared the other day?"

"When you lied about being pregnant?" Zeref let slip.

She looked like he'd slapped her, staring at him blankly for a moment. Then she got angry. "Why would you say that?"

"Ultear heard you talking about it." The cat was already out of the bag and there was no love lost between Ultear and Angel. Zeref decided to welcome the calamity.

"She should mind her own fucking business."

"And you should mind ours," Zeref concluded.

Angel paused, clearly liking the way _ours _sounded. "Fine." Like that was apology enough, she took a dirty pipe from her pocket.

"Don't bring that shit in here," Zeref snapped when she worked a brick of heroin out of her pocket and started to shave at it.

Just like that, Angel's goodwill evaporated. "Oh? That's _right_. You're trying to get Natsu off it. I guess it'd be a lot harder if I told him Brandish's supplier didn't _actually _get picked up, right?"

Word travelled frighteningly fast in a place like Magnolia.

Zeref felt himself get cold all over, ice water in his veins. "I can bury you, too, Angel."

Her body went still but for her eyes, those searched Zeref's for anything human. He didn't want her to glimpse the monster he spent so long burying, though. He stood and grabbed the door and opened it for her with an exaggerated flourish. "If you don't mind? I'm busy."

"You're such an asshole," Angel seethed.

He lifted his shoulder. "You knew that."

The truth took some of the fight out of her. She stood and stomped to the door, snagging her shoes on the way by to put on outside, as though she couldn't stand to be near him for another second. The thing was, now that Zeref knew what to look for, he could catch Angel in her lies. Her body bent just slightly toward his as she exited, and she looked back, twice. Zeref was just as guilty, he supposed. He pushed back the curtain and watched her stop on the sidewalk and fix her shoes. He longed to call her back, to get her to pull out her drugs and splay them on the table. He'd smoke until he couldn't see straight and then he'd fuck her until he passed out.

Someone moved toward her. Zeref glimpsed Natsu's pink hair. Angel straightened, swiped at her cheeks, and linked arms with him. She glanced back once more, daring Zeref to stop her.

Zeref swore and started to open the door but paused. He'd taken away Natsu's supply, ditched his drugs. There was going to be temptation all throughout his life. He was going to have to learn to say no some time, right?

Zeref dug his fingernails into his palm again, feeling the blood well and spill over. "He's got this," he said aloud, though he wasn't sure if it was true or not.

Natsu didn't come home that night, but around two, Zeref got a text from Gildarts reporting that Natsu had stumbled into the Bunkie he kept open for him, shaking and sober, and Zeref smiled. His brother was going to get better.

* * *

Another two weeks passed in a blur, pushing July into August. Natsu came home once in that time, to get more clothes and take the truck without asking. He didn't bring it back, either, which was annoying, but Zeref tried to take it in stride.

Zeref watched the streetlight stream through the large bay window, letting his mind wander between Angel and Ultear and the space between them, where Wally's head lay in a swamp and his body in a dump. When Zeref felt like everything was getting to be _too much, _he'd take a sip of the vodka he'd lifted from the liquor store last week, straight from the bottle, and glimpse at his revolver. He'd pulled it out from beneath his bed and left it on the living room table. The single bullet lay beside the chamber. An entrance to escape into the dark.

Someone beat their fist against his door, jarring him so badly from his dark thoughts, the vodka slopped over the neck of the bottle and soaked his crotch.

"Motherfucker."

Another knock.

Zeref hesitated before pulling back the bedsheet curtain and seeing August waiting.

"Hi," August said as he entered.

"What are you doing here?" Zeref asked.

August held out a black duffle. "Your cut."

For the last car they'd lifted. They were getting better—this time, it was an old Audi they'd commandeered.

Zeref looked past August's shoulder. The street was sleepy and quiet. "Come in." Zeref closed and locked the door behind him.

August looked around the apartment only briefly, taking in the details quickly, a thief's prerogative. Zeref did a quick inventory as well. He hadn't left anything inherently valuable out. But August was looking at his gun.

Zeref acted like it didn't matter. He situated himself on the couch. August stood over him and dropped the duffle on the table.

"Count it."

Zeref pulled out stacks of green and flipped through them, thinking of all the things he could buy with that much money.

The first thing he did was separate a hunk for methadone, to remind himself that it was a commitment he'd made and needed to uphold.

"I have another job lined up," August said, taking the money. "Bigger this time."

Zeref cut the stack and made a portion for phone bills. "Where?"

"West end."

Rich town. "Yeah?"

"Big bucks if we can pull it off."

Jail time if they couldn't. Every car there had an alarm. They'd been practicing getting around them with mock-ups August had built by a guy he knew that was good with tech, but their success rate wasn't one hundred percent.

Zeref ran his fingers over the money, thinking about his mother and Natsu and the drugs he'd put down the toilet. Thinking about Wally and the police and if he couldn't win Jellal's love if he could buy it. People like him understood violence and green.

There was only one obvious answer. "I'm in."

August nodded briskly. "I'll call when I'm ready."

He showed himself out as Natsu walked in. They passed each other, strangers, and sized each other up.

Natsu closed the door and locked it firmly. Zeref kept his eyes on his money, fingering through it and portioning it for bills as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Where have you been?"

"Out," was Natsu's short reply.

"I needed the truck."

Natsu shrugged. "It's back."

"I don't need it anymore." Zeref rolled his eyes.

"Then what's the problem?"

A lot, but who was counting? Zeref pushed down his anger. "Just tell me when you're going to take it."

Natsu loosened his scarf and threw it on a free hook by the door, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Which was Natsu's way of punishing Zeref for something. The trick now was finding out _what_. "Who was that old guy?"

Zeref didn't have a good answer for that. He tried to buy himself some time, pretending like he couldn't hear him standing half a room away. "Hm?"

"The guy that just walked out of here. Who was he?"

Zeref offered a piece of truth. "Just a guy I'm doing some work with."

"What kind of work?" Natsu needled.

"Just mind your own business, Natsu, the less you know about anything, the better."

"So, it's not legal work."

Zeref answered, "Everything's legal if you don't get caught." As if that settled everything, Zeref said, "There's pizza in the fridge. Beer, too, if you want."

Natsu wasn't as easily distracted now as he'd been when he was young. He didn't move an inch. "I deserve to know."

Zeref sat back. "Leave it alone."

Natsu dug his feet in; he could be so stubborn. "No. If it's going to bring the cops around, I want to know."

Zeref's eyes dragged to the stained wall. He _hated _that kneejerk reaction, as if the body was still there, taunting him. Couldn't Wally just stay in the ground? "Nothing's going to bring the fucking cops around. I got everything under control." Zeref waved him off, annoyed for new reasons. "Get out of my face now, I got shit to do."

"You don't know—"

Zeref stood without meaning to and pushed Natsu's shoulder hard, angling him toward his room. He couldn't have this conversation anymore. "Go."

Natsu went. The door slammed so hard; the thin front window rattled. Zeref breathed out and shook his head when a moment later, he heard Natsu's phone hitting the wall. His exasperation turned to quiet pondering as he heard Natsu lift his mattress and dig around beneath it, searching desperately. Zeref was sure it wasn't for the porn. Heroin was like that, letting you out of its clutches for a few days, and then dragging you right back in.

Natsu's door ripped back. He was as furious as Zeref had ever seen him, hair stuck up from where he'd shoved his hands through, and his fingers balled into fists. "Where is it?"

Zeref lifted an eyebrow. "Where's what?"

"My pipe."

"Oh."

Natsu stalked toward him and got in his space. "Oh? Zeref? Where the fuck is it?"

Zeref looked at Natsu calmly. "I threw it out."

Natsu repeated, "You threw it out."

"I told you to get rid of it. You didn't listen. I made the decision easier."

Natsu's eyes got as hard as granite. It was startling to see him like that, it was almost like looking into a warped mirror. Natsu wasn't as cold as him, but sometimes, he would run so hot, it was like his thoughts shut down. "Like you told Brandish not to sell to me anymore."

Angel and her big fucking mouth. "Kinda, yeah."

Amazingly, Natsu put his anger on a frayed leash and marched past him to the door. Zeref grabbed his collar, holding him back. Maybe he didn't want his brother out, shaking the trees for heroin, or maybe he just wanted another glimpse into that mirror.

"It's late, you're not going out."

Natsu spun on him. Zeref's jaw flared with sudden pain. He stumbled back and wiped blood from his mouth. He looked at his brother in surprise and saw the fury in Natsu again. Something inside Zeref loosened, a knot, and relief flooded through him. An idea that he wasn't completely alone like he'd thought. An idea that Natsu understood the crazy in him.

Zeref tightened his hold on Natsu's collar. "You want to hit me? Come on, then." He barely recognized the sound of his own voice, strangled and gleeful.

Uncertainty flicked through Natsu's eyes, smothering the demon Zeref had caught sight of. Natsu backed up, squirming to get out of Zeref's iron grip. "Fuck off."

Zeref tightened his grip again. He wouldn't let it go so easily. "No, go ahead. Hit me. I deserve it." That was true. He _did _deserve it. For Wally. For Angel. For Natsu. He _deserved _it.

"Fuck off, Zeref."

He wouldn't. "I know you want to." He'd seen Natsu's barely contained rage. "So just fucking do it. Hit me." Zeref pushed his brother. "Hit me." Natsu stumbled back. "_Hit me," __he screamed and shoved Natsu again, harder, and Natsu did as he asked. _Blood spilled across Zeref's tongue, sweet and bitter all at once.

Relief flooded through Zeref. "Again."

Natsu held up his hands. He looked horrified. "No. I'm done; I'm not doing this."

It was too late to back down now, though, the rage was in Zeref and it couldn't be stopped. He hit Natsu hard in the stomach, and then in the jaw, and Natsu fought back, he did. He just wasn't as untamed and vicious as Zeref. He wasn't as ruthless. He wasn't as cold. He didn't crave blood on his knuckles the way Zeref did.

Zeref didn't stop until Natsu was on the ground and there was blood on the wall, just like when Wally fell. A little more, and it could be just like that night.

_And you can bury him in the dump, too. And Jellal can put Natsu's head in a fridge and deliver it to you._

Coldness leeched out of Zeref, slow and steady. What was left was revulsion. This was his _brother. _He didn't want that for Natsu.

Zeref fell to his knees and turned Natsu's head toward him. There was blood and bruising, deep blue, like the colour of Angel's eyes. "Hey."

Natsu didn't move.

_Fuck. _

"Come on, Natsu." He shook him; Natsu's head jarred back against the floor limply.

Desperate, Zeref got low and put his ear to Natsu's nose. He held his own breath as he waited.

There.

Warm breath, slow and shallow, crossed his cheek. Relief hit him like a tidal wave.

He looked at the mess with new eyes. Horror.

"Why did I do that? I didn't mean to. I didn't." He shoved his hands through his hair like that would help him analyze his own behaviour. Of course, he had no insights. He needed to talk to Raquel. She would have the answers.

Except, it was late. Her office wasn't open. Zeref tried to think of another person he could unload on. His mother would be horrified and would probably call the police if he told her he beat Natsu unconscious. Gildarts would lock him up. Angel would be afraid. He had no idea what Ultear would do, but he suspected she'd be on Natsu's side. They'd gotten close.

Without an outlet, Zeref did the only thing that seemed logical—started to clean up the broken glass on the floor—the TV had smashed, and the coffee table was broken, somehow. Someone had fallen through it.

But cleaning didn't seem like enough. Every time his eyes would travel back over Natsu's unconscious form, an unfamiliar and uncomfortable prick would slide beneath his skin and he'd have to look away.

"Fuck."

_Hit me. _

"Fuck."

_I deserve it._

But Natsu didn't.

"_Fuck_!" Zeref yelled and felt helpless. As helpless as he had before starting Methadone. As helpless as he had when he'd slammed Wally's head against the wall and watched all the red spill out.

His cheeks felt damp. He rubbed his cracked knuckles against them. There was blood and there was wetness. He looked at Natsu, who was bruised and leaving a small puddle of blood beneath his open mouth.

His head felt like it was breaking apart, two halves of the same person fighting for control. Sane Zeref, who almost felt remorse, and furious Zeref, who watched his rage sweep him up and drift him along in the tide. He had no idea which one was the real him, or if he liked one better than the other.

He needed to get out of the apartment. Away from this.

He grabbed his truck keys and left without looking back.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Eh… haha. If anyone's still reading this little vanity project, sorry it's so late. I did NaNoWriMo this year and I've been working on some other stuff.

Also, garbagemen is amazingly sexist. Sorry. But it's a WORD.

Okay. I love you for reading this terrible story about terrible boys and their terrible vices. AND I'VE MISSED YOU. Xoxo.

* * *

You only ever touch me in the dark

* * *

Zeref drove for so long, his eyes were bleary, and the horizon was lightening. He called Doctor Raquel's office to hear her soothing voice on her answering machine. He didn't say anything, just imagined what she'd tell him if he spewed out the whole sordid tale. _I killed a man. Then I beat my brother unconscious_. Breathe deeply, she'd tell him, and dive into the anger, don't _submerge _in it, but look. Find its source. Don't let it control you, Zeref. It's yours, after all. You control _it. _And once you figure out where it's all coming from, you can uproot it and starve it.

He believed that, once. Back before Wally. Before Natsu. Was he still on his medication when he had that delusion? And if that's the case, should he go on them again?

Zeref sighed. He drove his truck past the quarry just for a look, though he didn't need reminding of what he'd done. He needed to remember that he and Natsu were a team. Natsu lied for Zeref, kept his deepest, darkest secret. And it was shaking him apart. You couldn't buy a bond like that. And Natsu deserved better.

Zeref swung his truck around and returned to the apartment and was greeted by an uninvited guest.

Lucy Heartfilia was dressed to impress in a pair of high-rise skinnies and a halter top that showed off a large slice of her stomach. All black, all very unlike her. Her feet were stuffed into a pair of high heels so tall, Zeref was scared she'd topple over on them when she stood from his cracked concrete step.

"Hi, Zeref." Her eyes moved over his face, taking in his blackened eye and bruised jaw.

"Lucy." Zeref searched the twilight world and found a shrouded figure lurking near the edge of the building. Jellal? One of his thugs?

Lucy rolled her lips, wetted them. "Have you seen Natsu?"

How did he tell her yeah, when I was beating the fuck out of him?

"No." He tried to move by her. She did what not many people would and grabbed his arm, stopping him like he wasn't who he was, and she wasn't who she was, they were just two people, with one messy thing in common. Natsu Dragneel.

"Please." The way she said _please,_ full of so much emotion, made it clear to Zeref that he had always been and would always be a fraud, a mannequin pretending to be human. How could anyone have ever believed otherwise? Lucy's eyes filled with tears. "He's been ignoring me and—" She hiccoughed.

Zeref opened his mouth to give her a spiel about the _right type of person _but she seemed so genuinely lost and in agony, he didn't know where to begin.

"I love him," she said desperately, as though she expected it to mean something but had been told before that it doesn't.

And it was true. Sometimes, love wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to keep his father from blowing through all the family money and it certainly wasn't enough to keep Zeref from reopening his knuckles on his brother's face. Love was the kind of fickle thing that destroyed peoples' lives. It never meant the same to one as it did to the other.

As though she could see through him, she said, "He loves me, too." Her hands were clenched tight against her side.

Zeref looked toward the shadow by the alley. "You'll get him killed."

Lucy shook her head furiously. "Nothing like that's going to happen."

Zeref searched her eyes to see if she really believed that or if she was trying to fool herself. She was a smart cookie; she couldn't be ignorant. "You know what kind of business your father runs, right?"

She dropped her eyes. "I know. We don't have to stay here, though, me and Natsu. We can go anywhere. Be anyone. We can be happy together."

Happiness was something Zeref never really believed in until he saw Natsu's face light up when he saw Lucy.

"I'll tell him you came by."

She settled in against the wall and he realized she meant to sit there until he went in and got his brother. Zeref thought about dragging Natsu out and handing him, limp as a rotting leaf, over to the girl that loved him. The questions, the digging accusations that would surely flare his anger. "He's not here."

Lucy started. "Do you know when he'll be back?"

Zeref shook his head. "Go home, Lucy."

Her gaze was glassy, but she was still full of hope. They both knew he didn't tell her never to come back.

Zeref watched Lucy's profile fade down the road. She was walking. He should offer her a ride, it'd be a nice thing to do. Her shadow was detaching himself from the alley, though, and approaching. Zeref felt in his pocket for the switchblade he usually kept on his person, but he didn't take it out, not yet. He didn't want to track back to the quarry, bury another secret, not if he could help it.

"I'm one of four guys Heartfilia has watching her," said a vaguely familiar voice. Zeref squinted and identified someone surprising. Someone he hadn't seen since his high school days, sitting in the smoking section, sharing the cigarette Zeref lifted from his dad.

"Neinhart."

Neinhart stepped into the circle cast by the streetlight. Thin like a reed but fit, purple hair. He had a sullen mouth; Zeref couldn't recall if he'd ever seen him smile.

"It's been a while."

"What are you doing here?"

"I offered to take this job when it came up," Neinhart said.

"Why?"

"Curiosity."

"And now?" Zeref didn't feel any particular way about killing him, other than exasperated. It would be a lot of work.

Neinhart said, "Remember when I threw the hammer through Principal Horton's car windshield and the janitor came out screaming because he thought it was you, and you never corrected him?"

He didn't, really. High school was a haze of skipping days and drugs. He blinked at Neinhart.

"You were expelled."

The memory niggled at him, distant. It was startling to think he couldn't remember what ended his high school career. Was that how far he'd fallen? And if that was the case, was there any hope of scrabbling back to the top?

"That was ages ago." Clearly it didn't matter to him, he'd almost forgotten about it completely.

"Doesn't matter. I always felt responsible," Neinhart said with a shrug. "So, consider this even."

Zeref scrutinized him. "What does even look like?"

"When Lucy's here, I'll tell Heartfilia his daughter went out with that pretty boy that's been hanging around."

_Loke_, Zeref recalled. Normally, he wouldn't take a convoluted favour that was likely to blow up in his face, but he felt he owed Natsu a whole lot of something and this could be the first step to making it better. "Thanks."

"No worries." He turned his back on Zeref and followed Lucy's tracks down the street.

After a moment, Zeref opened the apartment and stepped inside, expecting to find things as he left it, and mostly, they were, but one critical piece was missing. Natsu.

He checked Natsu's room. His bed was bare. His closet was full. The bathroom was empty. Zeref tried his cell phone. It was turned off.

_You could leave it,_ he thought. But Natsu hadn't been looking good. Did he need a hospital? Did he wander out into the street, not knowing where he was or where he was going?

Zeref started making phone calls, contacting all their mutual friends. He started with Ultear and moved through the list, getting the same answer every time. _Haven't seen him. _He hesitated in calling Brandish. He threatened her. What were the chances she'd help Natsu or Zeref?

"Fuck it." He called. She answered on the seventh ring, sounding exhausted. The sun was poking out of the horizon, bleeding colour into a monochrome world.

"What is it?"

Zeref got right to the point. "Have you seen Natsu?"

Silence. Then, "No."

Which wasn't an entirely truthful _no. _"Tell me."

"I _haven't_ seen him," Brandish reiterated more consciously. "But I heard Richard did."

Zeref scoured his brain and came up with a face. Richard was one of Angel's dealers. Small-time. "I need his number."

Brandish rhymed it off for him without hesitation. Then, "Did he find another supplier?"

_That _put cold water in Zeref's veins. Natsu wasn't in a good place. He wasn't thinking right. What if he _did _go looking for H?

He hung up without responding and tried Richard, who, like Brandish, took way too long to answer in Zeref's opinion. He was groggy saying "Hello?"

"Where did you see Natsu?"

"Zeref?" Richard asked.

"Answer me." Red was creeping up on him again. He soothed his anger like he would a furious tiger, ineffectually.

"He came out all fucked up tonight," Richard hurried to say. "Someone laid into him. Angel took care of him."

Angel. He was disappointed he didn't think of that earlier. An image of her sitting on the arm of his couch, trying to coerce heroin from a very high Natsu paraded through his mind. Angel's legs pressing into Natsu's ribs, her sly smile. Did she glance in Zeref's direction, to see what he thought of their closeness? Yes. But what did it mean? It was hard to navigate emotions at the best of times, but now when it's weeks later and the dregs of adrenaline were making his thoughts sluggish, Zeref didn't _know. _

"Where did they go?"

"I think she took him back to her place," Richard offered.

Zeref hung up. He sat there for a moment, trying to decipher the feeling in his gut. It wasn't quite relief, though he thought it _should _be. Maybe it was nothing. A great gap of fucking nothing. He pushed his anger out again. Feeling nothing kept him calmer than feeling something when the only thing he could safely say he felt was rage.

He showered Natsu's blood off him and found he could think clearer, and what he thought was he was wildly unpredictable. Natsu needed to stay away.

He called Gildarts, who answered right after the first ring, leading Zeref to believe he'd been awake.

"Zeref? What is it?"

"Can Natsu stay at your place?" Zeref said with little preface.

Quiet on the other end. "Is everything okay?"

That was a complicated question. "Sort of."

"Is _he _okay?"

"He's beaten up."

Gildarts sounded more alert. "What happened?"

"I fucked up." The simplest answer.

"Zeref…"

"We just need some time to get out shit together."

Quiet again. Which was better than a barrage of questions. "I have to get him from Angel's and bring him home. Can you come get him in an hour?"

"I'll be there." Gildarts was nothing if not dependable.

"Thanks." Zeref hung up with the image of a different man in his mind. Gildarts had been there since they were small. When they're parents were too busy screaming at each other, he could be trusted to put bandages on their knees or make them lunch. He even picked them up from school a time or two when they'd get forgotten. He picked Zeref out of as many ditches as he had Natsu. He was the only one person Zeref could say without a doubt had Natsu's best interest in mind. He was certainly the only one Zeref _trusted _with Natsu's best interest.

Gildarts was the logical choice.

Zeref packed Natsu a bag, throwing in things like sweaters and jeans and underwear, socks. His toothbrush and even some cologne. He put it all in the living room, setting it on the messy, glass-strewn floor. Then he got on the road.

Angel lived in a basement apartment across town. It took Zeref ten minutes to drive there in the light morning traffic. He circled the block once to banish the wreckage of anger trying to piece itself back together again. He was exhausted. And he should be remorseful, not angry. That was Raquel in his head, feeding him emotions like she did when he was young.

"When someone's hurt, you're sorry," he said aloud. "And sorry people aren't angry people." He practiced some breaths. In and out. Out and in. Hold. He made sure his pockets were empty. He wished he had thought to grab a pair of battered gloves from the apartment to cover up the evidence of his crime, but it was hot out and they would look strange.

He fixed his T-shirt on his way around the back of the house and shoved his hair back from his face. It fell over his left eye again, twice, before he got it to stay.

The yard was empty, and the street was quiet, as it usually was. Angel lived in an older community because she could afford to. A tiny part of Zeref resented her for that. He tried not to think about it too often. If things weren't so fucked up with him and Natsu, they could probably afford to live somewhere nicer, too. Someplace Jude Heartfilia wouldn't cringe at. Maybe then when Lucy went on tailgating dates with Natsu, he wouldn't have Natsu jumped in the streets.

Zeref balled his hand into a fist and hammered on the door. He did it again, and when Angel still didn't answer, he knocked continuously until finally, the door was pulled away.

Angel was in a spaghetti-strap tank and a pair of pink underwear that really didn't hide much. Her hair was a mess, in a low ponytail but mussed up and there were deep bruises beneath her eyes. She squinted at Zeref. He guessed she had three hours of sleep.

Angel pushed back her hair and scrubbed her hands over her face. She didn't look surprised to see him. "Hi."

"Richard said he saw you leave with Natsu."

"He's here."

Something stirred on the couch. Messy pink hair, pale, bruised skin. Zeref felt relief and shame all at once, a rare break in the coldness he carried with him always. He didn't expect it to be so powerful, but his knees felt like they could wobble out from beneath him.

Natsu pulled up the only piece of clothing he was wearing—his boxers. Zeref pretended he didn't see anything. "Let's go."

Natsu sat up unsteadily and cracked out the word, "Washroom?"

"Third door on the left," said Angel.

Natsu rose and then they were alone. Angel took Zeref's arm and brought him inside. "He was hurt." In her voice was hesitation. She was afraid of what he was going to say next. If he was going to comment on their state of undress, on their shared discomfited nature. On the condom wrapper thrown on the ground beside the couch, for gods' sake.

But Zeref had enough drama. Besides, what could he say? He fucked Ultear whenever, didn't he? And that wasn't even the worse of his crimes. Once, he kissed Natsu's first girlfriend just because he was curious to test the boundaries of his acting skills. It turned out, he was a pretty good seller, making that girl think what he wanted her to think. Zeref's only regret had been that Natsu caught them. Which he figured made him a bad person and deserving of a little karma.

"I know."

"But I think he'll be okay." Angel turned those blues on him. He wished he was someone different. Someone that could melt beneath her stare, someone that could give her what she craved. But he was who he was, and this was the best he could do. He squeezed her hand because that's what he'd seen people do in movies.

"Thanks, Angel."

She beamed like that was enough. Maybe it was. What the hell did he know? "Don't worry about it."

"Did he say anything?"

Her expression got cloudy and careful. She knew what he did to Natsu and didn't want to be in the middle of it. "Not really." But her eyes skated over his own bruised face.

"It was complicated."

She dropped her gaze and drew her bottom lip between her teeth. "I told him about the chop shop."

"Alright." The truth had to come out at some point, didn't it? Besides, Natsu had to know the coffee shop was a lie. Or suspect.

Feeling braver, Angel linked one of her fingers with his. They were closer than they were before. Zeref tried to wade through the things he was feeling. Annoyed? Glad she was there for Natsu?

The washroom door opened then and Natsu came out, dressed but still looking like hell. Zeref took the opportunity to straighten and step back from Angel. Natsu didn't look at either of them as he grabbed his converse shoes and walked into Angel's backyard barefoot.

Zeref stepped back into the yard. "Thanks for taking care of him."

Angel half-smiled like things were healed between them. "Anytime."

The world seemed different out from Angel's apartment. Loud and bright. The sun burned over the horizon. Natsu squinted his eyes against it and when he got into the truck's passenger's side, he closed them completely and leaned his head back against the seat. Zeref got in the driver's door and got them moving. He wanted to ask a lot of things, what Natsu was thinking, how he was feeling, if he needed anything. The only thing that seemed safe, though, was to say,

"Lucy came by the apartment last night."

Natsu's shoulders got stiff. "I told her not to."

Zeref said dryly, "She's not really the kind of girl that does what you tell her. I thought you knew that?"

Natsu sighed as if he knew exactly that but played with fire anyway. "Was there trouble after?"

Zeref considered his next words carefully. There wasn't trouble, exactly, but it could certainly lead to it if he let Neinhart lie to Heartfilia like he said he was going to and they got found out.

Natsu opened his eyes and looked at Zeref directly for the first time all morning. "Did you have to go back out to the quarry?"

Zeref took his eyes off the road, feeling like a whip lashing out. "Shut up about that, will you? How the fuck can we move on when you've still got your head all tangled up with that shit?" _Says the guy that drove by there last night._ Who lived and died in that stupid place at least four nights a week.

"_Did_ you?" Natsu persisted.

"No." Zeref squeezed the steering wheel tight. "Now like I said, shut up. It's not any of your business." He jumped back to Lucy, for once the safer topic. "Her family's got her watched. The guy changes every few days but one of her tails is a friend of mine. He was on her last night and didn't care that she came over."

"So..." Natsu said hesitantly. "Her father doesn't know?"

"For now." Zeref glanced at him again. "I didn't tell her not to come back."

"Why would you do that?"

As an apology. "Because you're my little brother and I want you to be happy."

Natsu closed down again, sullen and miserable. Maybe he was thinking about Angel. "I can't be that with Lucy."

It was a bad idea right from the get-go, as misshapen and unformed as it was.

Zeref parked in his usual spot and followed Natsu into the apartment. He got a broom to keep himself busy, cleaning up the rest of last night's mess, and dropped his next order of business while Natsu watched him. "I called Gildarts."

"What for?"

"To tell him you're staying over for a few days."

"More chop shop business?" Natsu wielded the words like he would a blade.

Zeref didn't even acknowledge the secret. "You need a few days and so do I. I'll get this place cleaned up and when you come back, everything will be better."

Natsu's expression turned suspicious. "Define _better_?"

What _did _better mean? Different things to different people. To Zeref, it meant no more lies. No more fights. No more obsessive drives to the quarry. Or at least, pretending that he wasn't obsessively driving to the quarry. "We'll stop pretending."

Natsu had more questions primed but just then, Gildarts' yellow mustang cranked up to the curb.

"I packed a bag for you."

Natsu stood there stubbornly. "What if I don't want to go?"

Zeref couldn't understand why he _wouldn't_.

The door was knocked upon. Zeref didn't get it so Natsu did with a heavy sigh of exasperation.

Gildarts took in the state of the apartment with a few calculated sweeps of his eyes. He noted Zeref's knuckles and Natsu's busted face, the tension in the air. He tried to school his face into a smile, but it was a little flat. He looked at Natsu, ignoring Zeref completely. He was always the bad guy. The shoes fit comfortably.

"Hey kid, ready to go?"

There was a moment when Zeref thought Natsu was going to say no, thanks. But then he did another sweep of the apartment, his eyes lingering on Zeref's. There was a lot of hate in his gaze. It made Zeref want to flinch. "I'll get my bag," Natsu said.

_Everything will be better after, _Zeref promised himself. The thing about being emotionally stunted was that he could convince himself of almost anything because he didn't understand the depth of his or Natsu's betrayal. And maybe if he didn't get it and he could move on, Natsu could do the same.

* * *

It took a long time to clean and even when he was done, there was evidence of their fight. The coffee table was in ruins. He dragged it out to the curb without knowing if the garbagemen would take it. He did the same to the broken TV. He paused sweeping the floor to watch a few people stop and look to see if it was salvageable. Of course, it wasn't. The one thing he and Natsu excelled at was breaking things.

Around nine PM, he was hit with a craving so badly, he curled in on himself on the living room floor and wrapped his arms around his middle as though that would help. He sweated, he ached. He twitched, feverish.

That was how Lucy found him. She looked worried kneeling beside him. Her perfume washed over him, vanilla bean. She touched his forehead with a cool hand, gentle. Lucy was like the cashmere sweater he could never afford. The delilah among the daisies. She was pretty and sweet-smelling and absolutely out of her element in his grungy apartment.

"Can you hear me, Zeref? Do you need an ambulance?" The cold buttons of her jean jacket pressed against his cheek, sobering. The withdrawal slowly receded, and his thoughts cleared. Lucy Heartfilia was in his apartment. He was on the floor, soaked in sweat. The switchblade he'd gotten rid of earlier was sitting on the ground where his coffee table usually was. It looked glaringly criminal in her presence.

Zeref swallowed. His throat was parched. "How did you get in?"

Lucy retracted her touch and clasped her hands primly in her lap. She was wearing jean shorts so short, if she moved a little to the left, her underwear would be showing. "The door was unlocked. I saw you on the ground and…" She flushed a pretty shade of pink. "I was worried. Sorry."

One by one, Zeref's muscles unwound and the scratching in his brain gentled to a light scrape. He could breathe. Standing took a few tries and once he was there, he thought he was going to ruin Lucy a little more and vomit right on the floor. But he swallowed and the overwhelming urge abated. "I'm fine."

"You look sick." She was still on the floor looking up at him, pretty and bright, the nicest thing that had ever stepped into this apartment.

"I'm okay. You can go."

Zeref shuffled to his room and found what he thought was fresh clothes. He went to the washroom and showered the sour stink of sweat off him. When he came back out, he was surprised to find Lucy still in there. She'd moved from the floor to the couch and tucked one of her feet beneath her. For all her well-bred manners, she'd kept her high tops on. That was probably for the best, there was likely still glass on the floor.

He looked around, thinking maybe he'd stepped into a weird twilight zone where her kind crashed into his. Or that he was still tripping. But there was a hole in the wall from _something, _his fists, Natsu's, one of their heads, maybe, and the TV and coffee table was still gone, and nothing felt like it was covered in fog, so Zeref had to assume he was in his right mind.

"What do you want?"

Lucy wrung her fingers in her lap. "I want to talk about Natsu."

"He's not here."

"I know that." She'd checked while he was showering, her guilty expression said.

Zeref sighed and threw himself down in the spot opposite her.

Lucy fidgeted beneath his gaze and tugged at her crop top as though only now concerned about her modesty. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"

"With?"

_"Everything_. He's spiraling and he won't talk to me about it." Her eyes got wet again and when she blinked, the tears streamed down her face. "I want to help him. I've read books on addiction," Lucy said, anxious.

"Then you know how badly he wants something he can't have." The kinder thing would be to give it to him. Let him drown, at least he'd die happy. Dizzy, at the very least. Oblivious.

She flinched as though she could read the thoughts in his head. "He needs—"

"He's trying." They were all trying, struggling like worms suffocating in saturated dirt, fighting for the surface but running out of air to breathe. He thought of Natsu sprawled on Angel's couch, a condom wrapper at his side, the evidence of pills on the table. He felt the anger simmer deep in his gut but couldn't figure out if he was furious with Natsu for going to Angel, himself for pushing him toward her, or Angel, for fucking Natsu up more than what he was when she _knew _he was struggling enough already.

Whatever Lucy saw on his face made her lean away from him. Zeref realized he was clenching his hands into tight fists. He relaxed them.

"He's staying at Gildarts'." Fuck Natsu and his, _I can't be happy with her, _he could. He would. He would stay sober for her. More importantly, he would stay the fuck away from black holes like Angel. "In the Bunkie."

Lucy blinked and her fear vanished. "Thank you."

"He's not himself," Zeref added, trying to prepare her. Lucy knew that better than Zeref did, though. She leaned in and squeezed his hands in a gallant show of bravery. He looked at their clasped fingers, hers manicured and her skin whole and pink, his nails and knuckles broken and scabbed. He wanted to tell her to run, to stay the fuck away from him and his brother, but he was selfish. He didn't mind pulling Lucy down a little if it meant Natsu could use her to climb a little higher.


	12. Chapter 12

Night, midnight, lose my mind  
(When you get to my high, when you get to my)  
Night, midnight

* * *

The next morning near nine, Zeref's phone rang. When he checked the caller ID, it was Doctor Raquel returning his many phone calls. He imagined she was frantic. She got like that when he'd wander out to an edge and call and call, hoping she'd pull him back. Usually, he'd answer, longing for her grounding voice. This time, Zeref let it go to voicemail.

His mother called shortly after. He didn't answer that, either. Eventually, both stopped trying to reach him. Without their constant nagging, the quietness that permeated the apartment in Natsu's absence was unbearable.

Zeref played music as he cleaned the remainder of their fight away. He couldn't do anything to fix the hole in the wall, he couldn't be bothered purchasing drywall putty or tape or paint. He covered it with a picture instead, of a devil holding a human skull, perching on a throne. He didn't remember where it came from or why he liked it. But it did the trick.

When the days rolled into one another and he started feeling really disassociated, he'd scroll through and check the date of Gildarts' first text and compare it to his phone's calendar. Without Gildarts texting Zeref every day to give him an update on Natsu's sobriety, he'd be lost. Two weeks had gone by since Zeref called Gildarts to collect his brother.

He moved like a mannequin through the apartment, posing here and there, dazed. Furniture appeared; he didn't always remember getting it. The TV he knew he snagged from the sidewalk of a restaurant that was closing. The Motherboard was toasted but he asked Wall Eecho to replace it and it was fine. But the coffee table that looked nearly new? Zeref _thought _he recalled carrying it over his head late at night, but he didn't remember for sure. And certainly not where it came from.

Angel stopped by the apartment one afternoon. When Zeref opened the door for her, he was startled to see that the leaves on the trees were turning red. July had given into August and August was turning cold.

"Long time," Angel greeted.

Not long enough, Zeref thought, remembering Natsu stumbling out of her apartment and the pills scattered on her table.

"I thought you would have invited me over by now." She slid past him and took off her shoes. She wore light blue socks with puffy white clouds stenciled on them.

"I haven't had anyone over," Zeref said truthfully. He'd locked down, locked everyone out. Gildarts was the only one he'd conversed with in long, long days.

"People think you're dead." She settled on his couch, her hair sliding over her shoulder. "August was talking about taking your cut from your last lift." She looked around the apartment as she spoke, at the new TV and coffee table, the painting. All his crimes seemed blatantly obvious under her gaze.

His world tilted on its axis. He didn't remember the last time he'd picked up a car with August. "Oh."

Zeref's phone buzzed in his pocket. He looked at the screen. Texts from his mother, which he ignored, Angel, August, and, finally, Gildarts. Zeref focused on the last out of force of habit. It was another update on Natsu. He was taking care of himself when Gildarts reminded him to, which was usual for a comedown off heroin. He was sober and restless.

_You should call him, _was Gildarts' final text_. _Zeref looked at the words; he almost didn't understand them.

_Call_? he texted back.

Gildarts got back to him almost immediately. _He'll probably like hearing from his brother._

Zeref remembered the last time Natsu was in the apartment, the glare of betrayal he slung Zeref's way, for punching him around and then for calling Gildarts to pick him up. He skated his gaze over Angel. She was like an open flame teasing at hydrogen, trying to make it explode.

He wouldn't call Natsu, he decided, not with Angel there. But he'd text. The only thing he could think to ask was, _how are you feeling?_

Natsu didn't respond right away. Zeref texted August, too, while he waited. _Do you have my cut?_

August was faster than Natsu, responding with an immediate, _you went dark._

_So? _Zeref responded.

_I needed it,_ August returned unapologetically. _But I have another gig lined up._

Zeref chewed his cheek in annoyance. What could he say, though? He didn't remember doing the last job to collect his money and August took it. He couldn't expect any less from him.

_Fine, _Zeref typed back. _When_?

_A few days. I'll text._

"Well?" Angel asked. Zeref nearly forgot she was there.

"Well, nothing. What do you want?"

She stilled, half of a smile on her face. "Just to see you."

He wished not for the first time that he knew how to be nicer. Then Angel's expression sparked with cruelty and she asked, "Why don't you have parties anymore?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe we could have one. For old time's sake."

Maybe not.

"I'll text everyone."

Zeref imagined the air choked with smoke again, dust on the tables, music filling the empty space.

He longed for the busyness. When his apartment was crowded with people, he wasn't thinking crazy things inside his crazy head. He wasn't thinking about going to the quarry, looking at what he'd done, or Natsu, or any of the other terrible things he should feel worse about but didn't. He was distracted. And distraction couldn't be underrated.

"Okay."

Angel looked surprised by his agreement but not displeased. "Good." Then she settled back in her seat. "Where's Natsu?"

"Why?" he asked too sharply.

She smiled for real. "Just curious. Is he home?"

"No."

She had buttons on her sweater. She undid them while she held his eyes with hers. "Then I guess we don't have to move."

Zeref watched her until she was all the way naked, not sure what to say or how to school his features. Angel was unfamiliar territory all the time, he couldn't keep up with what she was feeling or how she was feeling it.

"What is it?" Angel asked.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he said in a rare moment of disjuncture.

Her smile grew in large increments. "You're supposed to come here."

It was nice, for once, to be told what to do, even if as he was doing it, he knew, somewhere in his head, that it was wrong.

Angel's skin was smooth and cool as he slid his hand up her side and found the round curves of her breasts. She reached between his legs and took his cock out of his pants. Her hands worked up and down his length, making him hard.

Zeref looked down on her, trying to sort through his spiderweb thoughts. He couldn't see her ribs as much as he used to. It was unfair, wasn't it? It seemed easy for her to pull out of benders and somehow, she always managed to skirt the downward spiral of addiction. If he kept her close, could he learn to do the same?

_If you keep her close, you'll only drown,_ he thought. She was a weight pulling him under the water. The girl that sat on the edge of the bathtub while she waited for a positive or negative symbol to show up on her pregnancy test, the girl that flooded his house with drugs, the girl that fucked his brother out of spite.

Angel gasped. Zeref stopped squeezing her breast so hard. His fingerprints were already in her skin; maybe they'd bruise, and they could both walk around with reminders of what they'd done to each other.

* * *

People were laughing, his apartment was alive, cloudy, not monstrously clean as it had been in the past. Just as he feared, white dust marred the newish coffee table, taunting Zeref. Angel produced a straw, leaned over, and snorted up a long line of it. She sniffled, someone hooted. Angel leaned back and handed the straw to Zeref. There had been a meanness to her since she arrived those days ago and it had only gotten more pronounced. This was her punishment for his ignoring her, for his being so cruel. She was going to destroy him the only way she knew how, and he was determined to let her.

_Why are you like this_?

Because it was easier.

It was like the year hadn't slipped by him; nothing had changed. Except, Natsu wasn't in his room for Ultear to pull him out and invite him to smoke a bong. The first time Zeref watched his brother do drugs, he was hit with a sense that he should stop it. But he also didn't want to be alone.

"All my life, I've been fucking selfish," Zeref mumbled.

"What?" Angel prodded.

"Nothing."

"Take some."

It'd been months.

Zeref closed his eyes.

"Just do it. It's okay."

"It's not."

"You don't have to get wrecked."

"But I will."

"But you don't have to."

"That's never fucking mattered."

She closed his hand on the straw. "I know."

A weight settled down beside Zeref. The straw was taken from his hand and a new voice interrupted. "Stop."

Zeref opened his eyes, blinked, focused. Ultear was there. She looked like the angel that Angel did _not._ She made the straw disappear and swiped away the cocaine. "Your phone's been ringing." She dutifully ignored Angel's furious glare.

"It has?"

Ultear put it in his hand. August's name was on the screen. He'd called four times and texted three. _Call me back ASAP._

Zeref disentangled himself from Angel and got to his feet, unsteady. Distantly, he heard Angel berating Ultear as he drifted away from the noise.

The only place that was quiet enough to make a call was on the front step. August answered on the first ring.

"Finally."

"What is it?" Zeref asked.

"That job I told you I had. I'm ready to do it now."

"When?"

"Tonight."

He was too hazy to lift a car well. "Can we push it to tomorrow?"

"Nope. Now or never."

_Never, _whispered an unfamiliar voice in Zeref's mind. "Now," said greedy him. "I'll meet you—"

"You gotta pick me up," August interrupted. "I don't have my car."

Which meant they'd use the Dakota as a getaway. It was risky, using his truck. He wasn't entirely comfortable with it. But they always used August's car, so fair was fair, he supposed.

"I'll be there soon."

Zeref hung up and then just stared at the stars for a moment. He wasn't sure when his life had gotten so…

He didn't even know the term for what he was living.

* * *

August directed Zeref to a part of town they hadn't hit before. The homes here had spires that reached for the sky and some driveways that went on forever.

They avoided the homes by the lake, which had massive iron gates blocking their driveways, and stayed toward the left side of the road, where they were newer, more crowded and had sold for millions.

Zeref scowled at every house he could manage. He hated rich people. He once knew a well-to-do boy in public school that would pick on Natsu _relentlessly _for his broken Converse. Natsu beat him up a few times, but the kid would go to the principal and have him suspended. The third time it happened, Zeref stepped in and made the threat Natsu didn't know how to make. He could remember going to the dumpster behind the school and fishing out the broken broom handle one of the custodians had thrown away. From there, he waited by the art room for the final bell to ring, and as the boy came out of his art class, Zeref grabbed him by the collar and yanked him away from the crowd. They were too scared to intervene as Zeref pushed the broken handle into the boy's throat and made his threats.

"Are you alright, man?" August's voice hooked Zeref and reeled him out of his memory. He blinked. They were sitting at a stop sign and he was just strangling the wheel.

"Fine."

"You're tweaking."

"It's been weeks."

August laughed. "Seriously? You haven't come back for Methadone."

True. He'd been in a weird limbo between temptation and abstinence and it was almost like one hinged on the other.

"You're bullshitting me, right?"

Zeref shook his head slowly.

August popped open his glovebox and riffled around inside. Zeref _knew _what it was going for, yet it was still a kick in the teeth when August pulled out his emergency eight ball. "You're trying to say you don't hit this?" He set it on the seat beside them. It felt more dangerous than the partially loaded gun Zeref sometimes put to his temple.

"Put it away."

Another laugh. "I think I want some." He got a little bit on the nail of his pinky finger, longer than the rest, and snorted it right off, right there, under the streetlamps.

Then he offered it to Zeref expectantly. Zeref flared his nostrils to get more air, hoping it'd help him think better. All he could imagine was the sweet burn of it sliding down his throat.

_I need to get out of here._ He was twitching and sweating, almost as bad as when Lucy found him curled on the floor of his apartment.

Headlights swung around the bend behind them, giving Zeref something else to think about. He eased his foot down on the gas and they moved forward.

"It'd be easier if you just had some."

"It'd be easier to put a bullet between my eyes," Zeref mumbled.

August looked at him in amused disgust. Zeref didn't care what he thought.

"Turn here," August directed a few silent moments later. Zeref made a left at a stop sign and parked beneath a drooping maple, behind several other cars on the road.

"The house is two streets over," August said. "376. It's a BMW, new this year."

Zeref looked at his shaking hands. He didn't know if he was capable of lifting a new BMW on a good day, let alone _now_, when he felt like he could shake apart.

"Wait here until you see me," Zeref said, though it was protocol. August was fucking with him tonight and he didn't want that to mean he was going to get picked up by the cops when he fucked this up or walk home while August joyrode his truck.

"Hurry up."

Zeref left the truck running and got out. The night air was sticky and sweet-smelling, like rose gardens and peonies. Crickets croaked and, on the lake, a lone loon called. All these things drove Zeref mad. He raked his fingers through his hair like he could claw out the agitation.

"Breathe," he told himself. "And walk. You can do this."

Walking helped. It burned some of his pent-up energy. It felt good, but it could feel better. He wanted to run. He wanted to run and run and run and stop only when he dropped, dead. Running drew attention, though. So, he walked with all the patience he didn't feel.

The street was sleepy, only a few homes had lights on inside, and then they were only up in the top windows, people getting ready for bed. Zeref stalked down the street, feeling like a thorn sliding under skin. He wasn't supposed to be there, and he thought his presence was painfully obvious. He sweated through his T-shirt. He pushed his hair back from his forehead again. It fell forward in thick chunks, he was sweating so bad. He lit a cigarette and focused on it burning down into his lungs.

Zeref cut through someone's backyard and onto the next street. It was even darker than the first. Someone's sprinkler sprayed water over their garden. Zeref checked the street numbers. 356. Almost there. He swung left and froze. Someone was coming down the street.

_Not just someone,_ his mind supplied. _Your brother._

Natsu was so out of place that even after Zeref had identified him, it took him a moment to really _see _him. To understand where he was and what he was doing. Zeref looked around at the massive houses, at the shiny cars sitting in driveways, and shook his head.

Natsu seemed to see him, too, and swung on his heel, turning and hiding in the hood of the sweater he was somehow wearing in the blazing heat.

"Natsu," Zeref pitched his voice low.

Natsu came to a stop and waited for Zeref to catch up. Zeref grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, still not quite sure he wasn't stuck in a weird I've-done-too-many-drugs flashback and hallucinating.

Natsu looked back at him with bruised eyes. He seemed paler to Zeref. But very real. This was no hallucination; he found his brother wandering the streets.

"This way." Zeref turned him north, away from his target and back the way he'd come.

"What are you doing here?" Natsu asked.

The way he asked suggested Natsu knew exactly what Zeref was doing there but couldn't quite believe it until he heard Zeref say it for himself. Zeref didn't want to, though. They'd promised no more lies, but they said nothing about evasions.

Zeref turned it back around on him. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm just…" Natsu trailed off. Zeref watched him scour his thoughts, wondering if he should lie or not. Zeref didn't let him.

"You need to be smarter than that."

Anguished, Natsu said, "I want to see her."

Lucy. Always Lucy. "You can't."

"But I saw her a few weeks ago." Back when Zeref sent her to Gildarts'.

"That was then, this is now. You can't just barge in."

Natsu looked at him with large eyes. "I haven't heard from her at all. What if something's wrong?"

Zeref waved him off as nonchalantly as he could manage. "Nothing's wrong. She's probably vacationing on some rich girl beach down south before school starts."

"How do you know?"

Because men like Jude Heartfilia never punished their kin. They deflected and pinned the blame on someone else. If Lucy was in trouble, Natsu would be getting the brunt of it, not her. "I just know, okay? Come on."

But Natsu didn't move. Zeref planted his hand between Natsu's shoulder blades and gave him a little push. "Trust me. Come on. Come on. We can't stay here." Someone could look out their window at any moment and spot them. One of Jude's people, even, Jude himself. Who knew?

Zeref used some strength and pushed Natsu in the opposite direction of Lucy's home, and managed to stay out of the streetlights, for the most part. Natsu didn't talk on the way back to the Dakota. Zeref finished his cigarette and threw it in the gutter.

The Dakota was idling where Zeref left it, it's muffler too loud for the quiet street.

August was in the driver's seat, cutting into more of the cocaine. He saw movement, identified Zeref and Natsu, and got out.

"Why are you back? Where's the car?" August sounded near frantic.

Zeref said, "We can't do it tonight."

August threw his hands into the air. "We told them they'd have it by four."

"Too bad," Zeref said, but he could feel a bead of anxiety slide down his spine.

_Calm. _He needed to keep his cool. Otherwise, he was going to have another episode and he didn't have the patience to pull himself out of another furious stupor.

August didn't notice his impeding danger or didn't care. "Too bad? Do you know how much shit we'll catch for this?"

"Some things are more important." _Breathing. _Calm.

"Like fucking _what?_"

Zeref gritted his teeth. "I have to take my brother home."

"What the fuck," August swore. "Are you serious right now?"

"You're welcome to go get it yourself." His attempts at remaining cool weren't working as well as he'd hoped. He dug a hole in his palm with a nail that was a little too long.

"You know I can't get in like you can. I always set off the alarm."

"Then I guess it's not getting done."

More swearing.

His exterior cracked. "Either get the fuck in the truck and shut up or walk."

Still muttering, August opened the truck door and got in. He slammed it closed behind himself, as petulant as a child.

Zeref used the moment of reprieve to readjust his settings. He was a lake on a cool morning, no wind, no ripples. No violence. "Get in," he told Natsu when he could. Natsu moved like his muscles were seized, but he did as Zeref suggested, opening the driver's door again and sliding into the middle seat. He had to move the baggy of cocaine to do it. He held it like it was a cobra and didn't look at Zeref. Zeref got in last and took the wheel and the baggy. He, too, felt as stiff as a robot.

"August, my little brother, Natsu. Natsu, August."

August said, "The junkie."

Cold water rushed in through Zeref's imaginary dam and what broke out wasn't a mindless beast, looking to lash out at anything it could, it was a calculated predator.

"Don't fucking talk to him or I'll put my whole fucking hand down your throat and rip your guts up." His inflection didn't change, his body language. Hard facts. He would do it.

Silence. Sweet silence.

Zeref shoved all that aside and asked his brother, "How's Gildarts?"

There was a pause in which Zeref thought he'd gone too far and Natsu wasn't going to speak, then Natsu managed, "Good."

"His Bunkie?" He put the truck in gear and merged onto the street again.

"Good." Natsu was still looking cautiously forward. He was perturbed. Like Zeref was a volatile chemical he'd somehow gotten stuck sitting beside.

_You're fine, everything is fine,_ Zeref told himself. _Natsu is fine, too. He's not scared._

"And how have you been doing?"

"Fine." Natsu cut a look his way, finally, bolstering Zeref enough that he could ask,

"No Pearl?"

"No."

Zeref lifted his mouth in his best approximation of a smile. "Good. Dragneels don't—"

"Fuck with heroin," Natsu finished.

"Right. We don't fuck with heroin."

* * *

They never returned to lift the car. He would have if August suggested it, but August didn't talk to him after Zeref dropped Natsu off at Gildarts', so Zeref swung back to August's apartment and let him off without saying goodbye.

He returned home and crashed there on the couch, smelling the residual cigarette and marijuana smoke. He felt like he was there for a long time, not really moving, not really changing. The sun rose and set. People came over, invited themselves in. Ultear showed up and made him something to eat; he figured he must have looked pretty pathetic if it made her maternal instincts kick in. She sat beside him on the couch as the party he didn't authorize raged around him. Music and drugs, alcohol. He allowed himself to smoke and made himself watch when someone, he wasn't sure who, brought out the white powder.

He was watching it disappear when the door opened and Natsu came in. It was the first time in weeks that he'd come back and Zeref was hit with a sense of longing. He missed his brother, he missed having someone to take care of because it reminded him to take care of himself, too.

Natsu stepped over two people Zeref didn't know, sitting cross-legged on the ground, whispering to each other and laughing. He situated himself beside the couch next to Zeref and bent down so he could be heard.

"Can I borrow the truck?"

He looked better than he had the last time they met. He still had bruises beneath his eyes, but they weren't as dark, and his cheeks weren't as sharp. He was still clean. Good.

Zeref dug through his pocket for the keys but withheld them. "Are you coming home tonight?"

Natsu searched his eyes quickly. "I don't know."

"It's been quiet without you."

Zeref felt Natsu buckle. In fact, he seemed almost relieved by the offer. "Yeah. Yeah, I can come back. Sure."

Zeref gave up the keys and watched Natsu go.

"He's going to do drugs again if he comes back here," Ultear said.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because they're everywhere." She was looking at him like he was the problem.

"You don't know anything, Ultear," Zeref muttered too low for it to matter.

She took a bong that came her way. She tried to pass it to Zeref, but his phone was ringing, and the caller sidetracked him. Gildarts didn't often call.

Zeref took the call in his room where most of the noise was muffled. "Yeah?"

"Your brother's gone," Gildarts said by way of greeting.

"He came here." Zeref moved the curtain and watched Natsu get into the truck in the back parking lot. He was by himself and no one else was around. "He's okay."

"He should come back to the Bunkie," Gildarts said.

"He's been cooped up in there for weeks."

"Yeah, and he needs more stability. He should come back."

"Have you called him?"

"He keeps sending me to voicemail."

Meaning Natsu didn't _want _to go back. Zeref couldn't expel Ultear's words from his head. _He's going to do drugs again if he comes back here._

The good thing, the responsible thing, would be to send him back to Gildarts' until he was entirely better. Hell, maybe forever.

_And you'll be alone._

Zeref chewed the inside of his lip, torn in ways he wasn't used to.

"Zeref?" Gildarts prodded.

"Yeah."

"I'm just trying to do what's right for him."

"I know."

"Can you at least tell him I called?"

Finally, he said, "Okay."

* * *

It was nearly one in the morning when the door opened again and Natsu came in with a dazed-looking girl with long, brown hair and a loose smile. She gawked at the apartment like she'd never seen anything like it before. If she wasn't high on heroin, Zeref didn't know shit.

He examined his brother carefully, thinking maybe Ultear was right and the only thing separating Natsu from a very long fall had been Gildarts. But Natsu looked sober to Zeref. He made him talk just to be sure, to introduce his friend. Cana, Natsu called her. He tried to remember if he heard Natsu talk about her before but couldn't. She must have been a new addition to his life. Zeref wasn't sure it was a _good _addition.

"You got a phone call while you were out." He would keep his word and Natsu could figure out the rest.

"I know, I got the message," Natsu replied tartly.

The relief Zeref felt was unprecedented. He shouldn't feel like that. He knew it, Ultear did, too. She was glaring at him. Fuck Ultear.

"Alright. You want a beer, Cana?"

"Always," Cana said in a drifting voice. She smiled and leaned back against the wall.

"I'll get it." Natsu excused himself into the kitchen. Ultear looked like she was going to follow him. Zeref returned to her, sitting by her side and putting his arm around her shoulder. She was stunned into settling back down beside him. They were so much alike sometimes, selfishly throwing aside people they cared about for what they wanted most.

Zeref leaned in and kissed her, melding his lips to hers. It felt like it'd been forever since he'd done this and she was very giving with her response, at first, turning into him and touching his cheek. Her lips parted and he found her tongue. She tasted like smoke and chapstick. The room fell away. Zeref skated his fingers over her breast, roughing the fabric of her shirt. Ultear's response was unexpected. She pulled back and looked around, hunting for Natsu. He'd already gone into his room.

"Excuse me."

"Why?" Zeref asked.

"I want to talk to Natsu."

"He's fine." Zeref kissed her again. "He'll be fine." _So don't ruin it. _

"You'll be fine with him here, you mean."

How did she see him so clearly? "We'll both be okay if I'm okay."

Ultear leaned away. "Do you ever get tired of trying to use me like this?"

"Do you ever get tired of letting yourself be used?" he unexpectedly volleyed back.

Ultear took the clap back like someone used to it. "You can't just do that to people. Everyone you touch deserves better."

He wanted to ask, _even Angel? _He schooled his features into an approximation of contrition. This was quickly spiralling out of control. "Sorry."

"Do you know what that means?" She was furious. Honestly furious. Zeref smiled. He'd never seen Ultear rattled. She was an excellent case study, all her emotions were heightened, when she felt something, she felt it with all of her being.

Zeref stood and offered her his hand. "Come on."

Ultear hesitated, torn between the want to do what he suggested because she loved it, and the need to make a stand. She started to stand and Zeref couldn't quell his triumphant smile. That was what did him in.

Ultear huffed and pushed him back. "I'm not always here for you to fuck with."

She stalked to the back of the apartment. Zeref thought, at first, that he'd won anyway, but Ultear invited herself into Natsu's darkened room and closed him out and he couldn't, not for anything, make himself go after her.

Someone laughed. Zeref joined them. The other option was to scream.

_When are you going to stop hurting the people around you?_

"Want some?" asked a gentle voice.

Zeref ignored them and whatever they were offering and lit a cigarette. He took it outside to smoke. When he was done, he threw it in the gutter and lit another while the party stormed on inside. That cigarette burned out at the filter. He was lighting another when he heard hasty footsteps.

"Like this night can get any worse," Zeref muttered when he identified Lucy's blonde hair shining in the moonlight. She was hurrying down the sidewalk at a good pace and her destination was clear. Zeref stood.

"Lucy—" He trailed off. What the hell was he supposed to say?

"Is Natsu here?" She was out of breath; her hair clung to her forehead.

"Uh—"

_All the lies you tell, and you can't manage this one?_

Lucy sighed and deked past him. It was a common theme that night.

"Hang on," Zeref started but she was already inside, stalking to the back of the apartment when she didn't see Natsu amongst the crowd.

"Wait!" Zeref said. Lucy blissfully ignored him.

"I've been calling and texting him. He should know I'm here."

_Does he_?

Lucy lifted her hand to knock on Natsu's door. It yanked back before she could touch it and Ultear and Cana nearly ploughed into her, disheveled clothes, sweaty. It couldn't be clearer what they were doing. Natsu stood behind them looking like a mouse caught in a trap.

Ultear figured out how to get out of there first and slithered past Lucy. She didn't look at Zeref; perhaps she was too ashamed after her little speech about considering others.

The tension was heavy. Zeref needed to get out, too. There was no graceful way to throw his brother to the wolves. He turned and sought the noise of the living room. A moment later, Natsu and Lucy went past. Natsu looked like he was going to be physically ill. Lucy… Zeref didn't know what to make of her blank expression.

It was only fifteen minutes before Natsu returned, looking haggard. Zeref met him in the kitchen and leaned against the wall while Natsu hunted for something in the fridge. Likely, something to dull his senses.

Zeref asked, "She's mad?"

"She acted like nothing happened," Natsu said into the fridge. He riffled through some condiments, looking for stray beers, getting more agitated.

Zeref searched the cupboard for a cup and got out one from a family trip many years ago. The Ninja Turtle Raphael was stretched across the plastic.

Zeref cranked on the cold water and filled it up to the brim. He handed it to Natsu. Natsu drank it reluctantly. A feeling like guilt hit Zeref. He really was selfish. Really, really.

"If you want, I'll contact my friend and—"

Natsu slammed his fist onto the counter. "Forget it."

He attempted to get by Zeref. Zeref didn't let him. He took Natsu by the shoulders and drew him in for a hug that spilled water all over the floor. It didn't fix anything, but maybe it could be a way to start.


	13. Chapter 13

All the nights spent off our faces  
Trying to find these perfect places

* * *

Gildarts was what Zeref liked to think of as a persistent drifter. They could go months without talking to each other and then, when he was needed, Gildarts was there again.

Gildarts must have thought he was needed quite a bit because Zeref couldn't look at his phone without seeing something from him. He was always asking how Natsu was doing, where he was, if he was getting high or not. Which forced Zeref to pay better attention to his brother. He determined Natsu was still tormented but he wasn't stoned. What more could you ask from a person?

Gildarts had a whole list of things and not all of them were achievable or even _practical_.

_I think we should start pushing him toward college, _Gildarts texted Zeref one day in late September. _I sent him some pamphlets. _

Zeref looked at his words and considered their meaning. If Natsu was in college, he wouldn't be there, rooting Zeref in reality, and giving him something to work on so he didn't come off the rails again.

And if he was in college, he could be better.

_Talk to him about it, _Gildarts suggested. _He listens to you_. As if Zeref knew right away that Gildarts was in the right and wouldn't consider ignoring him.

_We can't afford college right now._

Gildarts had an answer primed. _I've saved up a little money to get him started._

_We can't take money from you, _Zeref replied.

_Think of it as a loan._

Natsu came out of the bathroom then, a towel around his waist. He'd put on some weight. That was good, he was looking sick for a while there.

Natsu stopped by the door to his room, looking into the living room at Zeref. "What's up?"

"Have you looked at the pamphlets Gildarts sent you?" It felt like someone grabbed his mouth and was making it move without his permission.

Natsu narrowed his eyes. "He's been talking to you?"

"Well?" Zeref asked.

Natsu rolled his eyes. "Has he told you what he's been sending me? Police Foundations and EMS courses."

Gildarts was a fool if he thought Natsu was ever going to be a cop. But the EMS course had merit. "You like helping people."

Natsu's expression turned guarded. "I can't help myself, Zeref, why the fuck would I help anyone else?"

That wasn't really Natsu speaking. "Just think about it."

"I liked it better when you guys didn't talk," Natsu called over his shoulder.

_I did, too, _Zeref thought. He lit a cigarette and stared at Gildarts' last text. _He listens to you_. Too well sometimes.

_Is this how everything started falling apart?_ Zeref wondered. _Was it you making all the bad decisions and Natsu chasing after you, thinking it was alright because you said it was?_

A hot rod of hate wedged its way between his lungs and no matter what, he couldn't dislodge it.

* * *

October came in with relative peace. Ultear didn't really talk to him and Angel didn't seem to have much use for him either, not after Ultear tore her open for pressuring him with cocaine.

Zeref lost himself in watching people fill his apartment and party and even almost became okay with them sucking white powder off his coffee table while he sat on the sidelines. He made himself watch every time and when temptation became too much, he'd take his knife and jam the closed blade into his thigh for some healthy pain. He didn't need girls like Angel tempting him, and he didn't need to be saved by girls like Ultear.

He was looking at the bruise in the golden morning light when Natsu came into the small space they'd dubbed as the dining room. He flopped heavily in the chair opposite Zeref and picked at the coffee Zeref made for himself, touching the side of the cup to determine how hot it was and then taking a giant sip.

"There's more water in the kettle," Zeref offered.

Natsu just cradled the cup and looked at Zeref.

"What?" Zeref asked warily.

"Remember when we used to do Halloween?" Natsu surprised him by asking.

That was a long time ago, hiding behind barrels in the front yard of their parents' house and scaring neighbourhood kids. "What about it?"

Natsu lifted his shoulder and took another sip. The action was a little too casual. "We had fun, didn't we?"

"Sure," Zeref agreed.

"What if we do it again?"

"You want to have Halloween here?" Zeref raised his eyebrows.

"Why not? Mom and Dad don't care about it, so I haven't had one since you lived with them."

Neither had he. It didn't seem all that great when he didn't have Natsu there with him.

"We don't have costumes."

Natsu grinned his first grin in weeks and stood. He disappeared back into his bedroom. A moment later, he returned with a thing that looked like a burlap sack. He held it up. It was a scarecrow costume and it was ghoulish enough that for an instant, Zeref had chills.

"What do you think?"

"It's good," Zeref managed. It looked a lot like Wally had when Jellal pulled him out of the grave and stuck his head in a mini-fridge for Zeref to find.

_You're crazy. It's fine,_ Zeref reminded himself. _Wally is dead and this is a mask made to look like a campy villain from a campy TV show._

He held out his hand for it to prove to himself that it wouldn't feel like human skin, cold and slick. Natsu set it in his hand and the rough fabric was reassuring. Zeref put it over his head, feeling like he was wearing his fears. His heart, which had been beating much too fast, steadied and his breaths came deep.

Natsu's smile turned toothy. "Great. And afterward, you can come to the party."

Zeref pulled the sack off his head. "Which?"

Another too-casual shrug. Natsu was hiding something but Zeref couldn't figure out what, nor his motivation. "Just one at the old farm."

Zeref was familiar with the place he was talking about. It was a hotspot for parties with its abandoned barn and abandoned farmhouse. Someone, likely the neighbour's child, had run an extensive line of extension cords from the neighbouring house down the road and set up speakers and floodlights in the barn and battery-powered lanterns in the farmhouse. It used to be the classic oil-style lanterns but last year, a very drunk guy backed into one, knocked it over and almost set the whole house on fire.

Natsu watched Zeref with bated breath. Zeref couldn't suss out a malicious ulterior motive; he agreed.

* * *

Halloween day, Natsu brought home an armful of candy and two pumpkins, one large and misshapen, the other covered in green warts like a witch in old movies. Zeref carved the warty one into the best approximation of a nightmare and Natsu used his knife to make his pumpkin grin. It was so wide, it was menacing. They laughed and it was like nothing was wrong. Zeref wanted to hold onto it forever; in those hours, he didn't look at the place Wally had expired, and he didn't think about drugs.

They dressed around five. It was shocking and all wrong seeing Natsu in Gildarts' old police uniform. Almost like looking into a _what could have been _if their lives weren't so fucked up. He looked good, though.

"Here." Zeref dug out a pair of aviators from the kitchen drawer. They had a scratch on the rim of one lens and the arm needed to be bent back into shape. Natsu manipulated it until it worked and put them on.

"What do you think?"

"That you're in the wrong fucking house." Zeref put on his scarecrow mask to soften the words. He saw Natsu grinning at him through the eyeholes.

"Perfect. Let's go scare some kids."

* * *

Zeref kept a tally of the children he made cry. One little girl almost ran into traffic, she was so frightened. Her mother grabbed her arm and held her back from the curb, half smiling, half scowling. Fear was the point of Halloween, wasn't it?

Once the danger had passed, Natsu cackled about it. Zeref mimicked him, feeling like he used to when the façade he wore wasn't so stretched thin and torn in places, back when he could pretend to be just like everyone else and it felt like everyone believed him.

_Sorry._

_Do you even know what that word means?_

Perhaps it wasn't that he was failing miserably, only that Ultear was special in ways that other girls weren't and could peek behind his mask.

"Here comes another. Get into position," Natsu whispered excitedly.

Zeref checked down the street to where a podgy boy in a Power Ranger outfit too large for him waddled closer. He leaned back against the building limply, doing his best ragdoll approximation. He was pretty good at it, considering. He already knew what lifeless bodies looked like.

Zeref pulled his head from that dark place and focused on the task at hand. The boy was eyeing him suspiciously as he approached Natsu. His costume was too long for him and his mask was rolled up on his rosy face. He was by himself, a loner or a loser. When it was distilled, was there a distinction?

"Trick or treat," the boy said in a warbling voice.

Natsu grabbed a fistful of candy and dropped it in his outstretched pumpkin container. "Trick," he said with a mischievous grin.

The boy screwed up his face, perplexed. "What?

On cue, Zeref lifted himself from the wall and ran at the boy. The boy squealed like a piglet and tripped over himself to get away without once looking back over his shoulder. Natsu curled at his waist, he was laughing so hard. Zeref made himself do the same and by the time his laughter was draining away, he was back to feeling like his old self.

He removed his mask and put a cigarette between his lips. "I think that one wet himself."

Natsu started cackling all over again.

High-pitched laughter drifted around the buildings. "We've got more coming," Zeref said. He dragged on his cigarette once more, then dropped it to the ground and stepped on it. He blew the smoke out hastily and pulled his mask back down on his face. It was sweaty in there.

Beside him, Natsu made his face expressionless and pulled down his aviators just as a posse of girls came around the bend. They were too old for trick-or-treating, nineteen or twenty, but each carried very full bags of candy. They were dressed up as Ghost Busters, proton packs and everything. They must have either spent a lot of time making their costumes or a lot of money buying them.

One of the girls saw them and started coming their way. Her friend grabbed her shoulder and held her back. "We should keep going," she said in a familiar voice.

Zeref squinted through his slitted eyeholes and identified Heartfilia blonde hair. He stole a look at his brother. Natsu had taken off his sunglasses to see her better. He looked like someone had grabbed his balls and wrung them until they were blue. Lucy was returning his gaze. There was a challenge in her eyes. Both were so fucking stupid, playing with fire, and for what? What did love really mean? Threats of romance mixed up with blood and pain.

"Fuck sakes," Zeref muttered under his breath. One of them was going to end up dead.

Lucy continued by without stopping. Natsu stared after her, lost. Zeref took his shoulder, unsure if he was going to go after her. Natsu let out his air and faced Zeref again.

"You want to head to that party now?" Zeref asked.

"Yeah."

* * *

Stars crusted the cold October sky like flakes of broken glass on a satin tablecloth. Zeref tried not to stare at them too much as he drove up the farmer's driveway and onto the bumpy lawn, but they were distractingly bright.

He stopped the truck and put on the E break. Natsu still looked kind of ill. Zeref reached around him into the glovebox and pulled out a pipe and a baggy of weed. He packed a bowl, lit it, and breathed out a long line of smoke. Natsu looked relieved, engulfed in it.

"She might be here, too," Zeref warned, so he wasn't caught off-guard.

"I know," Natsu said.

Broaching difficult subjects had never been his forte but he tried anyway. "You still haven't talked to her?"

"No."

The way he said it left little room for a full discussion. "That's your choice, I guess," Zeref eventually said.

Natsu took a huge haul off the pipe like that might silence his churning thoughts. Zeref knew from experience that it helped quiet them for a bit, but it never stopped them completely.

"Come on, let's go scare some adults."

Natsu rubbed his palms on Gildarts' uniform, his nervous gesture. "I think I might just take the truck back."

"Don't be like that."

"I'm tired."

"Fuck that. Come on, we were having fun." Zeref shoved his shoulder to corral him toward the door, channeling a playfulness he didn't feel. Natsu pushed him back.

"Fuck off."

If he did then the night would be ruined and the small slice of normalcy he'd had would slip through his hands and who was to say he'd ever get it back?

Zeref grabbed Natsu by the shoulders and pulled him roughly out the driver's door. Natsu cursed and writhed as they tumbled over the uneven ground. A second later, he had his balance and faced Zeref squarely. His hands were balled into fists like he was expecting a fight. And that would be a relief, in a way but Zeref knew he didn't have it in him to let his brother beat him until all his frustration was gone. It was too dangerous.

Zeref ducked beneath Natsu and lifted him up in a fireman's carry. They used to do this when they were kids. Natsu was a _lot _heavier now and the weed was making Zeref hazy and slow, to the point where running over the uneven ground felt like slogging through oatmeal. But there was something lodged in his chest and when he opened his mouth, genuine laughter rushed out. Soon, Natsu started laughing, too, in an unhinged sort of way, where everything was broken and everything was fucked up but this, at least, was familiar, and they could pretend that Natsu wasn't thinking Zeref was going to fight him again, and this was easy.

Zeref ran toward the driveway that was lined with many pumpkins, carved and lit from the inside with tealights that sputtered in the breeze. Some of their faces were horribly twisted and others were wrenched into goofy smiles far, far too large.

He ran through them, knocking some over and managing to jump over others. A person appeared out of nowhere and he couldn't get around them. He hit them head-on and they all collapsed. He felt Natsu's knee dig into his chin and Zeref's elbow crunch something soft. Natsu laughed like a maniac, though he was gushing blood from his nose. The person Zeref ploughed into swore at them and stormed off.

Zeref struggled to stand and then helped Natsu up, too. His hands were coated in blood. For an instant, Zeref was standing in his entryway again and there was blood smeared all over the walls. He swallowed the bile in his throat.

"You alright?"

Natsu swiped beneath his nose. "I'm fine."

"You're bleeding." He almost couldn't stand to look at it.

"Just bumped my nose," Natsu brushed him off.

"There's water in the Dakota, and shop towels," Zeref said.

"I'll be back in a minute." Natsu started off that way. Zeref was relieved to see him go but it wasn't quite enough. He needed more space. He needed to get his thoughts in the right order and figure out how to stop himself from spiraling way out of control.

He picked a direction and started wading through the people. Ultear appeared out of the crowd, on the arm of the brunette Natsu brought home. _Cana, _Zeref remembered. She glanced his way, once, and waggled her fingers, inviting him after her. They hadn't spoken since the incident with Lucy. She hadn't even been over, which was unusual for Ultear. Zeref didn't care enough to dig into her reasons. He ignored her and continued toward the house.

The burlap of his costume was itchy in a distant way and he kept rolling his ankle in the divots. People were screaming, laughing, gagging, sighing, living, living, living. Lights flickered inside the house and music throbbed out of someone's speaker.

A person appeared out of the gloom. "I didn't really think this was your scene."

The light was the wrong way to illuminate him, yet Zeref knew exactly who it was; the voice was all too familiar.

"Do you ever just show up on someone's doorstep in the daylight like a normal fucking person, Jellal?" Zeref asked.

He turned just enough that Zeref could see his canines as he smiled. He almost looked monstrous, but that could have been the drugs. "This is more fun."

"Like leaving heads by my building."

"I'm not as dramatic as my uncle, that was his idea."

"That you carried out for him." Like a lapdog.

"For my cousin, actually," Jellal said. "I'm worried she's going to get hurt."

"Someone is," Zeref muttered.

"Doesn't really feel like there's another way for this to end, does it?" Jellal said. "Lucy's been doing a lot of things she shouldn't be doing. Going a lot of places she shouldn't be, looking for a way out of the mess she made."

"That's not Natsu's problem. He's been keeping his distance."

Jellal lit a cigarette. He didn't look right in the middle of the riotous party. His suit was too nice to be a costume, his shiny shoes covered in partially frozen mud. "My uncle doesn't believe that."

"I don't give a fuck what he believes."

"You should."

Zeref started walking by him but Jellal spoke again and made him freeze.

"I'll tell you this once, as a courtesy toward my cousin. Go home tonight, you and Natsu pack your bags and leave Magnolia. Forget who you were here, invent someone new and get a fresh start somewhere way off the map. I'll tell Uncle Jude and Lucy an unfortunate accident befell you and they won't look for you anymore."

Zeref stalled; his thoughts churned through Jellal's words. _Leave Magnolia. _Get a fresh start somewhere else.

"Here. No questions asked." Jellal held out a stack of cash thicker than any Zeref had seen before. "To get you started."

That would hold them over for a few years if he was smart about it.

"Take it," Jellal ordered.

Feeling dazed, Zeref accepted the money. "Natsu isn't going to want to leave."

"You're going to convince him otherwise." Jellal showed Zeref his back and crossed the field toward the road where a black SUV waited, headlights off. Zeref watched him until he was in the car and the taillights were two blurry smears on the road. He slid his fingers over the paper, thinking of all the possibilities ahead of them. They really could start new. Forget Mom and Dad, and Lucy and Angel and Ultear and all the games and just _live_. Natsu could go to college somewhere and meet a new girl whose father wasn't so psychotic; whose family wasn't neck-deep in criminality way beyond what Zeref was ever capable of.

_And you_?

He could start seeing a therapist again. It wouldn't be Doctor Raquel, who was familiar and safe, but someone new. He could tell them almost all his secrets. Maybe he could talk about Wally, in a detached way. _I've thought about doing this. _Which wouldn't be a _lie. _He had thought about it, quite a lot.

_You could get better._

Better was a distant dream that had faded from his memory; Zeref didn't know how to visualize it anymore.

"Zeref."

Zeref turned. Ultear stood almost exactly where Jellal had. She looked like she'd fallen out of a Rob Zombie movie, dramatic makeup and little clothing.

"Can we talk?" She looked young then.

"I don't think so."

"Please." She took his arm to keep him from going by.

Zeref shook her off. "You said what you had to the last time we met, and you were right. I do use people."

She cast her eyes to the ground. "I know."

"Then go away."

She captured the inside of her cheek between her teeth and squeezed so hard, he was afraid she'd start bleeding. When she looked at him again, she looked desperate. "What if I don't care?"

Zeref thought he was the only desperate person he had room for in his life. "Remember my gun?"

Her expression turned wary. "What about it?"

"Remember it against your temple? Remember pulling the trigger?"

"I didn't," she said.

"Exactly."

She seemed confused. Then angry. "So, because I didn't play your stupid fucking game, I'm not good enough for you? You're crazy."

He smiled.

"You know what, I was right. Fuck you." She pushed him back and stormed away.

It felt like a bandage had been pulled off a very large wound. Zeref fixed his eyes on the horizon and basked in it.

Lights strobed off the trees that traced the road. They were a few kilometers out, but there was no mistaking the red and blue strobe of police, and there was a lot of them.

"Fuck," Zeref swore. He shoved Jellal's money in the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out his phone. The home screen was bare of notifications for once. Zeref pulled up Natsu's information and called as he ran toward the Dakota.

All around, people were seeing the same thing he had and starting to panic. A girl tripped out into his path and fell on her front. Zeref jumped over her form as her friends yelled and rushed to pick her up.

Natsu's phone went to voicemail.

"Come on," Zeref muttered and tried again. The police were close enough now he could see their headlights and they were speeding closer still, taking up ground faster than they should as they rushed toward a party in the dead of night.

Natsu's phone rang and rang and rang.

"Fuck. Natsu!" Zeref yelled into the rushing crowd. Some people looked at him as they jostled to their parked cars, but no one answered.

Zeref tried his phone again and got the same results.

_Fuck. _

Cruisers flooded the driveway and more choked the road, cutting off exits. There were still too many people for the cops to catch them all. Zeref watched one guy punch an officer as soon as he stood from his vehicle. He went down and the guy ran.

The Dakota looked like salvation. Zeref was thankful Natsu didn't bother locking the doors when he threw himself into the driver's seat and cranked on the engine. His brother still wasn't anywhere in sight, though, and Zeref wouldn't leave him. He was the reason Natsu was there, after all.

A cop car bounced over the front lawn to cut off the exit from the back of the barn. Zeref recognized Gildarts' cruiser. He swore again and hunted the flooding people. _Where _was Natsu?

_How long can you wait?_ He didn't want to be caught with all this cash in his pocket. He'd have some explaining to do and no matter what answer he gave the police; they weren't going to like it. Guys like him didn't just suddenly come into floods of money.

_Did Jellal do this on purpose? _Zeref wondered.

It was a lot of effort only to fuck him, with no guarantee that he'd be fucked. It wasn't really his style. He was more of an exact strike kind of guy.

"Answer your damned phone." Zeref hit redial and waited. It rang and rang and then there was dead air, and Natsu's laboured breaths.

"Where _are _you?" Zeref demanded without being sure if the phone was to his ear.

"I'm coming," Natsu managed.

It was relieving to hear his voice but Zeref still felt like his throat was in a vice. "The cops are here, hurry up."

They were getting closer. One veered off the driveway and onto the grown-in farmer's path, aiming toward the Dakota. He'd be there soon.

Zeref hunted through the chaos for his brother and saw him tearing through the field with abandon. He dodged an officer on foot, leapt over a body supine on the field, and then he was almost there. He didn't shorten his steps when he was near or bother with the door. He grabbed the side of the truck and swung himself into the back.

Zeref hit the gas and sped away from the cruiser on their tail, kicking up mud and stones onto its windshield. He glanced in the rearview and could only see the tops of Natsu's toes. He was lying down in the back (like Wally).

The errant thought was cold water splashing him sober.

A shallow ditch appeared in the headlights. He should have slowed or angled the wheels differently, but Zeref hit it head-on. The truck protested, the springs and shocks grinding. He felt the _thud _travel all the way through him. And then they were out, onto the road. He checked in the mirror again. Natsu was holding onto the racks for dear life, but he was still in the bed, _not _dead, and that was all that mattered.

The cruiser that had been chasing them was still way back there, stuck in the field by a gaggle of people that raced in front of it. Zeref sent up a silent thank you, though he doubted God had anything to do with it.

He obeyed the speed limit once they were on the main road. The truck wobbled slightly; he must have fucked the alignment coming out of the ditch.

Two more cruisers sped by; neither of them thought twice about the truck limping down the road. Natsu had the good sense to lie back down so he couldn't be seen.

He only started to relax once they were back under the city streetlights. Another moment and Zeref pulled into the parking lot behind their building. He took a minute to catch his breath, soaking in the silence and the semi-darkness of the cab.

The air was bitter cold when he got out. It would snow soon.

Natsu still hadn't gotten out of the back. A more acute kind of fear settled over Zeref and he was a mess trying to process it. He tore down the tailgate and looked inside. Natsu lay flat in the back, arms out, bare fingers clasped around the anchor points in the bed. He visibly shivered; that was the only way Zeref knew he was alive.

"Are you okay?" Zeref barely recognized his own voice. He didn't like how uncertain it was or how hard his heart was beating. It felt like a lack of control.

Natsu took too long to answer. Zeref grabbed his foot. "Natsu?"

Natsu's fingers relaxed a fraction. His shaking worsened. "I'm fine," he croaked.

The feeling that'd been threatening to overcome him washed out like the tide. What was left was emptiness. If this was the kind of thing regular people with regular emotions had to deal with day in, day out, he didn't fucking want it.

Natsu sat up and Zeref put his arm around his neck. Natsu was ice cold, still shivering.

"That was close," he said through chattering teeth.

"You might have hypothermia." Zeref tried to remember the signs and symptoms and treatment. How long did it take for that kind of thing to set it and was it cold enough?

"Just shaken up," Natsu said. "I thought they were going to get us." He laughed a little like it was stupid. There were worse things than getting arrested at a party. Like breaking your ankle running through a farm field, getting thrown out the back of a moving truck.

The warmth of the apartment flooded through Zeref. He set Natsu down on the couch and turned on the lamp beside the TV. Its base was missing a huge chunk of porcelain. It got broken in their last fight but Zeref didn't have the heart to throw it out; it came out of Grandpa's house when he died, and it was important to Natsu.

He dropped the quilt over Natsu and boiled the kettle for hot chocolate. He made one for Natsu and nothing for himself. His stomach felt like lead.

"Drink it," he said when he returned and Natsu curled his nose.

Reluctantly, Natsu took the cup. Zeref sat down beside him, monitoring. Natsu stopped shivering shortly after and looked healthy enough. Zeref admitted he probably didn't have hypothermia.

He turned on the TV to fill the silence, thinking to watch the news cover the police cleaning up the party. Instead, he looked at a very familiar quarry, where the police were pulling Wally from his grave.

They watched for a full thirty seconds, then Natsu jolted beside him, trying to put his hot chocolate down on the table. He missed and the cup fell and broke, spilling hot chocolate everywhere. He stumbled to the kitchen because he couldn't make it to the bathroom and spat up what he'd drunk in the sink. Zeref listened to him gag, numb.

* * *

I've got like, one more chapter, maybe two? I'm going to try to push through and finish it.

JMalguss, thank you for reading and reviewing :)


	14. Chapter 14

Every night my dream's the same  
Same old city with a different name  
Men are coming to take me away  
I don't know why but I know I can't stay

* * *

It was too risky to go to the quarry again but Zeref longed to stand over Wally's gravesite. It'd become its own addiction, in a way. He tried to follow it to its root, that thought, that impulse, to understand why he was obsessed with the crime he committed but could not.

He cleaned up the shattered porcelain while Natsu showered for too long. He could only imagine what his brother was thinking. He was like a rat in a cage, scrabbling to find a way out. Zeref was reluctant to admit, he felt the same way. This was a big fucking problem and he didn't know how to make it go away.

Did the receipts from the motel Natsu and Lucy used burn enough, or would the police be able to track it back to them? Did either he or Natsu leave DNA evidence on Wally? What would the police find when they put his body in their pathology lab? Was his blood under Wally's nails, or in the cracks of his knuckles?

_Why didn't you wash it all with lye?_

He admonished himself. Where the fuck was he going to get lye that night?

_Just be cool._

That advice _never _worked; he didn't know why he thought it would now.

The shower finally turned off and Natsu came out wrapped in a towel. The shadows under his eyes were as deep as trenches.

"It's going to be okay," Zeref said, though he didn't mean it.

"We were careful," Natsu agreed.

It was hard to get away with anything these days.

"Hey," Natsu said, snagging Zeref's wandering attention. "I wanted to ask earlier. My friend Cana's looking for work."

"Good for her."

"She's good with cars and bikes."

"Are we really having this conversation right now?" Zeref asked. Had he fallen asleep and woken up in some weird twilight were his brother pretended everything was alright because he couldn't believe everything was wrong?

"I just promised her I'd ask. We might night have much more time."

"Shut up."

Zeref's words had to affect on Natsu. "Can you just ask your friends?"

Zeref rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt at swiping away the bad. When he opened his eyes, Natsu was still there, staring at him expectantly. Water dripped from his hair and down his chest. He shivered slightly, looking young and scared.

"Okay."

Natsu nodded. "Thanks."

Zeref got the bleach after Natsu closed himself in his room and washed down the apartment again. Every little thing. The kitchen, the living room, the bathroom. It still didn't feel good enough and he imagined it never would.

_You're always going to be wondering when the police will knock down your door._ They had Natsu's fingerprints on file after the last time he was arrested. Which meant that all of this would fall onto him. They'd arrest him again and hound him until he either took all the blame for Wally's demise or flipped on Zeref and then they'd both be in the shit.

He knew his brother well enough to know he was dumb enough to try to play the hero.

"_Fuck,_" he whispered as the reality of the situation started closing in around him. He grabbed his coat and shoved his feet into his boots and locked the apartment behind himself.

* * *

Large, sparse flakes of snow were falling, and the roads were abandoned. It made the world seem magical. It made it seem like he was the last man on earth.

It didn't matter where he walked, he couldn't find an easy answer to his problems. He made it back home when the sun was bruising the sky and slept restlessly through most of the next day. Every little noise would wake him—Natsu making coffee and toast, Natsu watching the news again, trying to glean any information he possibly could. Cars speeding by the apartment. They all marched into his dreams, making him believe the police were coming for his brother for a crime he, Zeref, committed.

_"__I think this is what guilt feels like,_" he mouthed to the ceiling near three that afternoon. He reached beneath his bed and picked up his revolver, spun the chamber, laid it against his head. He couldn't pull the trigger this time; the truth might die with him if he did.

The next night, he did the same thing, walking and walking until his feet and fingers were frozen, churning over his options. They were few and far between. He could take Jellal's money and try to disappear, him and Natsu, but it would be more difficult now that the police had a body to look at. If the Dragneel brothers just up and left one day, no trace, then the police would be looking their way for _sure._

"Damnit."

"Problems?" requested a voice from the shadows.

Zeref squinted in the dark. The cherry of a cigarette burned bright and he could see Jellal's tattooed face.

"Is this what you do for your family? Hide in dark places, following people?"

"I'm a lawyer, actually. This is just a side gig."

Zeref never had much use for jokes. "Don't you sleep?"

"Likewise. This is the second night in a row you've come to my side of town, thought I'd check-in. Considering I gave you all that money to disappear." Jellal puffed on his cigarette agitatedly.

Zeref's throat burned. "We can't." He hated saying that.

"Because poor Wally was found."

"Did you tip them off?"

"No."

Zeref believed him. "But you know who did?"

Jellal dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. "My uncle wants Natsu out of the picture and will do whatever he thinks is necessary to do it. Maiming him turns Lucy against her father, so…" he trailed off, leaving Zeref to fill in the rest.

"He thinks if Natsu gets arrested for murder, Lucy won't want to see him anymore."

"Seems like."

"It wasn't Natsu," Zeref protested.

"Is that what forensics will say?"

He was sweating despite the cold. "It's the truth."

"Even if it is, being an accomplice in a crime like this is almost as bad," Jellal informed him. "Any lawyer will tell you that."

"What am I supposed to do?" he pleaded.

"Can't say."

Zeref had the mad urge to beat him dead. _And find yourself in even more trouble._ Typically, the cops didn't care much about skin bags like Wally. Guys like Jellal Fernandez were the real attention grabbers. Rich, powerful and beautiful. A real tragedy when their kind went missing.

Zeref said, "You should take your money back. I might not be able to use it."

"It's been in your hands now. No one wants it."

Like everything he touched was tainted.

The last thing Jellal said to him before wandering off was, "Above all else, cops are lazy. They don't want to spend weeks waiting on forensic reports and months interviewing unreliable sources."

* * *

Having a secret like this was akin to being a festering apple. On the surface, you're whole, but beneath the skin, you're spongy and putrid.

It continued degrading Zeref even after the news came out that the police couldn't get much evidence off Wally's decapitated body. A lot of it had been compromised by the elements and invertebrates, and, of course, his head was nowhere to be found.

They identified him by DNA testing and his girlfriend appeared on the news again, beseeching anyone with information to come forward. What did it matter? She didn't have a family with him, and Wally had no one else.

Natsu kept himself busy so he didn't have to think about it all, Zeref suspected. He chopped wood for a woman named Porlyusica. Gildarts gave him her contact information. He also spent a lot of time with his friend Cana, working on Gildarts' bike in his front yard. The only thing he asked Zeref for was, again, a place for Cana to work, but the only thing Zeref did in that time was a lot of agonizing, watching the news for updates and generating lists in his head of ways the police could track him down.

His mother called mid-November. Zeref was going to ignore her but Natsu was in the room so he answered the phone. She, predictably, asked for money that Zeref had but didn't want to give up. If he used Jellal's money, was it somehow going to tie him to crimes, or enable the police to track him down and pin him for something? Or was Jellal going to suddenly ask for its return? Zeref would never be able to pay him back.

He sat on the cash while Natsu gave Zeref money from his wood chopping job to pass along. Zeref transferred it electronically. He didn't want to risk seeing his mother, afraid of her uncanny ability to see through all his guises.

Ultear came by the apartment a few days later. She was dressed in a tight red tunic that contrasted sharply with her pale skin and dark hair.

She didn't even look at Zeref when he pulled back the front door for her, instead crossing the apartment to Natsu's room and inviting herself inside. Zeref was annoyed, though the last time they saw each other, he was the one that shunned her.

He walked the streets again, so he didn't have to listen to whatever it was they were going to do in there and by the time he circled back around, Ultear was storming down the road, dishevelled and furious.

"Ultear," Zeref called.

The sound of her name sent a jolt through her. She stopped, the wind pushing her tunic dress around her legs, her hair a black tornado. She was beautiful, sharply contrasting against the grey background.

Zeref waited for an SUV to roll by and crossed to Ultear's side of the road. Her eyes tracked his every move.

"What?" Ultear asked when he was close enough. Her breath clouded in front of her face and got swept away. Zeref finally noticed the deep chill in the air. His jacket wasn't cutting it.

"Is he okay?"

"I guess that depends on your definition of _okay_." She gathered her coat up around her middle. Zeref grabbed her arm and held her in place. He didn't chase after people; now wasn't a good time to start.

"What happened?"

Ultear sighed. "Lucy."

It was _alway_s Lucy. "What did you do?"

Ultear opened her mouth with a defiant look on her face, but then her shoulders fell, her expression changed, and she spilled the truth. "Lucy was pissed off Natsu was always ignoring her. She wanted to understand the girls he was always hanging around."

"What does that mean?" But he had an idea.

"She came to my work and said she wanted to party."

"At which point you told her to go home, right?" Zeref led.

Ultear looked to the sky. "She's a big girl. She should know better."

And Ultear was Ultear, _she _should have known better. "So, you fucked my brother's straight girlfriend."

"_Ex _straight girlfriend and it was the worst experience of my life." She must have been sitting on that for a little while because the words just erupted out. "She cried a lot afterward. Guess she thinks she can never be enough for him."

She didn't say it like she was being mean.

And Ultear let her think it. "People like us can't help breaking shit just to break it," Zeref muttered.

"Guess so."

"He really thinks he loves her."

Ultear glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "But you don't?"

"I don't believe in love. Do you?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have told him."

"You're sweeter than you let on," Zeref said at last.

She got so still, he thought he said something wrong. "And you're not as cold as you let on," she responded several beats later.

"I know you don't mean that." He smiled a conspirator's smile. It would be nice not to act.

She faced him head-on. "Does this mean we're good again?"

Zeref thought of the money he hid in Duma Key and Jellal and the body excavated. "You don't want to be my friend, Ultear."

"You're right."

Except she didn't mean it the way he meant it.

* * *

Natsu wasn't in the apartment when Zeref opened the door. He threw some spiral fries in the oven and let them crisp and turned on the TV. Every time he went to the news channel was anxiety-inducing, but he did it like the addict he was, waiting for the thrill and fearing the comedown.

Wally's gravesite had been a thing of decreasing popularity, but today, it was back up front-and-centre. Someone had called in a tip, claimed that they saw a truck driving into the quarry that night and two men. They didn't get a license plate but thought the truck was something small, like a Canyon or a Ranger, something of that class. The police were asking for anyone with more information to step forward.

It was Zeref's turn to feel like vomiting. He swallowed the bile burning in his throat. He was sweating from head to foot. He felt like a fool. A caterpillar caught in stasis. He _knew _Heartfilia knew all his dirty secrets, Jellal proved that when he dug up Wally's head and put it beside his building. But his last conversation with Jellal had made him believe they'd come to a stalemate, a state of existing where neither side was happy, but they went on the way they were going on because they were used to continuing that way.

_Empty threats_, he thought. When had Jude Heartfilia ever made a threat he hadn't acted upon, though? Time between blows didn't make for a safe environment.

_And now you're going to drown._

Worse, Natsu was going to, too.

Zeref's hands felt like they were slicked in blood again. The walls were closing in on him.

Natsu came through the front door, rumpled and pale. Zeref turned off the TV before he could catch any of what the newscaster was saying.

"Are you okay?" Natsu asked.

Zeref had to swallow again to make his voice work. "Fine."

"You look sick."

"Withdrawal." It was the first time he openly spoke of his addiction. Natsu looked as startled as Zeref felt, normally, he would have kept that tight to his chest, but he knew he would have said anything to distract from the truth.

"It'll be okay," Natsu said.

Eventually. When he made it that way. Zeref knew better than to wait for the world to figure itself out.

* * *

An unsolicited text came to his phone the next day. It was a blurry picture of his truck. It was too dark to make out the license plate, but in the back was a lump covered beneath a Slimer blanket.

_It wasn't a bluff, _said a corresponding text. And,_ the next picture has better lighting._

_What do you want_?

Zeref typed out the words but didn't send them. Something like that might indicate the tip about the two-man job was right, if the police saw it, and Natsu could be arrested.

He had a different plan.

* * *

Cars rocketed by at dizzying speeds. Zeref counted them at first, while he stood on the sidewalk and smoked, ten, forty-five, one-oh-seven. They all looked like bullets, the highway the chamber of his gun, his footsteps the firing mechanism. The curb curled under the arch of his foot, making it cramp. His toes were cold, late-November cut through him like a knife through an apple.

_That rotting apple, _he thought. When it fell to the ground, all his secrets would be out, exposed for everyone to see. He had a letter in his pocket. His _confession. _The thought made his blood run fast in his veins.

A rusty and purple PT Cruiser whirled by and honked its horn loud and long. Zeref acted like he hadn't heard it. He edged his toes a little closer. Some cars moved into the lane opposite, trying to get away from the crazy, he supposed. Others didn't seem to see him or care and remained where they were. Every time they went by, the wind grabbed his coat and pulled at him like it was going to pull him into traffic.

Zeref closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing. Instead, he was met by Doctor Raquel's blue walls and carpeted floor. The fish tank that bubbled quietly in the corner.

_"What are you doing, Zeref?"_ Doctor Raquel was middle-aged, and her blonde hair was so light, you almost couldn't tell it was going grey.

"You know," Zeref said.

_"Running from your problems."_

"_Solving _them," he rebuked. "Hopefully."

_"Dying won't do what you want it to."_

"You don't know that."

_"It didn't help Wally."_

"Wally didn't have a confession note."

_"Do you think that'll save Natsu from getting caught in the fire?"_

_Yes._

Keeping his eyes closed, Zeref lifted his chin and stepped out into open air. Horns honked wildly; tires squealed. A force grabbed him and yanked him hard. Zeref hit the ground, his arm and his leg aching. Someone was swearing noisily; for an instant, that was all Zeref could hear.

He opened his eyes. His hands were cold, planted in slushy sidewalk snow and above him stood Ultear. Her shadow was as cold as her glare.

"What the _fuck _are you doing?" Her lips were painted mauve. She was in a black coat, open despite the biting wind. Beneath it was a light pink sweater and a black pair of jeans. Her boots went up to her knee, black and shining.

"Well?" Ultear demanded.

Zeref got to his feet. One car, the one that almost smoked him, he assumed, had pulled over to the side of the road. The driver was just sitting there, watching them in the rearview. Zeref flipped him off and noticed that his palm was torn open. He'd caught himself oddly on the pavement.

"What the fuck is going on with you?" Ultear continued to barrage him. She probably wouldn't stop talking until he started.

"Just an accident."

She planted her hands on her hips. "I _watched _you."

"It was just an accident," Zeref reiterated.

She brought in a staggering breath and clutched her coat around her middle, not because she was cold but because she didn't feel safe, her body language said. Zeref wished he could say something to make her stop looking at him like he betrayed her.

He fixed his coat; it was soaked. So were his pants. Something was wrong with his foot, too, but he could wiggle his toes and move his ankle. He put weight on it, sweated and swallowed back a yell.

_Maybe it's broken?_

He set his foot on the ground, testing it. It was stiff and hot, but it held his weight. _Ligaments, _he decided. When he was thirteen, he'd pulled the ligaments in his ankle playing hockey. It'd taken almost three years to heal and even then, it still ached sometimes.

"I'll help you home," Ultear said, distracting him.

Zeref shook his head. "I don't want to go home." Home was where Natsu was and if Ultear told him what she caught Zeref doing, Natsu would know something was going on.

"Then where?"

"Fairy Tail," he decided. It was nearby, warm, and he could use a drink.

A rational person might protest. Ultear wrapped her arm around his waist and helped him hobble away from the sight of his almost-death and the still-parked car.

* * *

Fairy Tail was always busy. The bar had good food and good beer. The bartenders knew how to mix a decent drink and Zeref didn't go there often enough for them to be annoyed that he hadn't paid his tab the last time he was there. The bartender was different and had no idea who he was.

Ultear bought them a round of tequila shots. Zeref knocked it back and it went down so smooth, it was like water. "Another," he told the bartender.

"Are you cold?" Ultear asked.

Zeref plucked the bottom of his jeans off his leg. "It's not bad."

She pulled one side of her mouth tight. "I was worried about you."

"I didn't think you cared after last time."

She straightened in her seat. "Why would you say that?"

He couldn't help manipulating her; it was literally in his blood. Zeref chewed his tongue to try to stop anyway. "You didn't follow me back to the apartment."

A sidelong glance. She couldn't keep up with his hot and cold. Zeref was only one step ahead of her, thinking if she wasn't fucking things up for Natsu, then he could be okay, and the way to get her to stop fucking with Natsu was to give her what she wanted.

Ultear said, "You didn't say anything when I told you how I felt. I was mad. That doesn't mean I don't care." Her fingers slid over the grain of the bar. Zeref smiled to himself. People were easy when you knew what they wanted.

"And Natsu?"

"He loves Lucy, you said so yourself."

His smile grew.

Ultear asked, "And Angel?"

"Angel loves Angel."

She leaned into him and brushed her mouth against his. He didn't realize how cold he was until he was touching her. She was warm all over, her lips, her cheek, her hip when he grabbed it.

Ultear sat back, wearing a pleased smile. She ordered another round of tequila and Zeref had three more after that. His head was buzzing, and he almost felt warm. His foot was forgotten and so was the highway. Doctor Raquel still managed to fight her way inside, though.

_"How are you going to deal with this?"_ the ghost of her asked while Ultear was in the washroom.

Zeref stared at his empty tequila shot. He wanted another; the bartender kept ignoring him.

_"Zeref. You can't just manipulate people and charge on ahead. How. Are. You. Going. To. Deal. With. It?"_

"You'll have to be specific. Deal with _what_?"

A few people down the bar looked his way but no one approached.

_"You won't have to worry about Ultear getting between Natsu and Lucy because Jude Heartfilia is doing everything in his power to pin this murder on your brother. They'll take him away."_

"They won't."

"_You don't believe that."_

"Fuck off." He dug his phone out and stared blearily at the screen. His brother had texted him a little while ago. Zeref had the sudden urge to see him. He typed in _heyyyyy_ and Natsu wrote back a question mark followed by, _where are you?_

_Fairy Tail, _Zeref said. _I need to go home. _Like, back to when he still lived with his parents, probably, when he kind of liked them and he didn't know how much they could fuck up and how much he could fuck up, too. Back to when the dark-dark was actually kind of light.

Disgusted, he turned off his phone and returned it to his pocket.

Doctor Raquel's voice was still here, whispering to him. "_This isn't so bad, you know? You always want to do the right thing, Zeref and you know what it is._"

Find the root of the problem. Pull it. Starve it dead.

Hands closed on his shoulders and moved down his chest. Zeref leaned back and opened his eyes. Ultear stood above him smelling like jasmine. "Do you want to go?"

"Yeah." Probably.

His foot protested when he stood. It would hurt worse tomorrow. Ultear grabbed him under the arm again and held him close.

"Thanks."

Her smile softened her features. Zeref wished it wouldn't. Soft girls were the girls that got hurt. Ultear was supposed to be different so he didn't have to feel bad using her.

People jostled them on their way out, some even spoke to them, laughing. Ultear took care of it, deftly ducking any prolonged conversation. The one she couldn't get around was Natsu. He was almost at Fairy Tail's entrance when Zeref and Ultear stumbled into the parking lot.

"There he is!" Zeref said loudly, drawing the attention of every smoker in the vicinity, and now that he had them, he was overcome with an urge to make them all understand. "Everyone! This is my baby brother. This is my Natsu. He's—" A manhole cover appeared under his foot. He twisted his already bad ankle and almost went down.

Natsu shot forward and grabbed him under his arm. "Geez."

"No." Zeref pushed him away and readdressed the giggling crowd. They had to know Natsu didn't have anything to do with Wally. If they understood, then maybe everyone else might, too. "He's better than me. He's better than you." He jammed his finger into the chest of a man he didn't recognize, drawing a snarl from him. "He's better than, you, too," he said to another.

Zeref's ankle gave out once more. Natsu caught him again and this time, he brought him into a clumsy bearhug to keep Zeref from slouching to the ground. His head was spinning, and his body felt loose. He felt like laughing and screaming, he felt like lying on the ground and being nothing at all. His hands hung limply at his sides. Natsu did all the work, holding him up. Zeref was always used to thinking of him as the little brother; when did he get so strong?

"He's better than all of you, you know?" Zeref slurred. He leaned back just enough to see Natsu's face. "Right?"

"You're drunk." Natsu curled his nose; he looked worried. Zeref didn't like to see him worried.

"Hey." He made his voice as quiet as a whisper. "Hey. I have to tell you something. I have to. Come here."

Natsu surprised him by leaning in. "What?"

"I killed someone." There. It was out in the open. He did it.

Natsu's muscles got stiff. "Let's get into the truck."

_Not yet. _Natsu needed to hear it and Zeref needed to say it. "I did it. Not you. Right?" He beat Wally's head against the floor until his skull cracked open and his brains leaked out the other side.

Natsu squeezed the back of Zeref's jacket. "Shut up."

Not yet. "Say it. I did it, not you. You need to know that."

"_Shut up_."

Zeref felt suddenly as manic as Natsu looked. "_Say _it."

"Yes, okay, _fine_, you did it."

Relief. The way out of this fuckfest his life had turned into, which had been a foggy path at best, suddenly looked clear. Zeref swallowed the burning fire in his throat. His eyes were stinging, too. "Don't be like me, Natsu. Gildarts has applications for you. Fill them out. Okay?"

Natsu ignored him. "Come on, into the truck."

He wasn't going to let it go. Not until Natsu agreed. "Okay?"

"Okay," Natsu conceded. "Okay. I'll fill them out."

"You're good." Zeref patted Natsu's chest roughly and reached for Ultear. "Take me home."

Ultear fit against him like a puzzle piece.

"Hey," Natsu complained.

Ultear waved him off with a reassuring smile. "I'll make sure he gets home."

Natsu looked past her to Zeref. "Zeref?"

"Ul said she's taking me home."

Natsu stuffed his hands onto his pockets, shoulders set. "I just came all that way to get you."

Ultear giggled riotously. "No pussy on you, though."

Natsu rolled his eyes. "Zeref, come on." He sounded sober and worried. If only he'd seen Zeref teetering at the edge of the highway.

Instead of making him want to laugh, the thought only made his eyes sting worse. Zeref let go of Ultear so he could hug Natsu once, tight, trying to convey everything he didn't know how to say. He was sorry for being a shitty brother, he was sorry for not being there for him when he was going through shitty times, he was sorry for dragging Natsu down with him as he spiraled out of control. He was sorry for being him.

"I'm fine," Zeref promised and released him. Ultear put her arm around his waist again and flagged down a taxi waiting in the parking lot. Zeref felt Natsu's eyes on him but he would not look back as he closed the door and the taxi rolled off.

Ultear sat quietly beside him, head leaning on his shoulder. Zeref, in turn, leaned against the window, watching the streets and pedestrians go by. If there was a moon in the sky, it was covered by the cloud.

The taxi driver stopped in front of Zeref's apartment and Ultear gave him money, then she opened the door for Zeref and prodded him until he was out. She fished in his pocket and brought out his keys.

They didn't bother turning on the lights. Ultear pulled him into his bedroom where she kicked the door closed. Streetlight pooled into the window so they could see. She stripped off her jacket and her sweater. She was in a bra the same colour as her lipstick. Her underwear matched. She threw both onto the floor.

"Here." She helped him out of his clothes. The note holding Zeref's worst secret fell out of his pants pocket and lay on the floor looking criminal. Ultear knelt in front of him, obscuring his view. She undid his pants and took him out. He was semi-hard.

Her lips were dry, and her tongue was warm. She grabbed his hips and forced him against her. She looked up; streetlight streamed through her hair and she was beautiful and soon, Zeref stopped wondering _what the fuck am I doing_, and just did it.

Ultear's hair was tangles as Zeref grabbed it and shoved hard into her mouth. She took his available hand and put it on her throat so he could feel her moan, swallow and fight for breath. She touched the scar he put on his arm months ago so she could remind herself he was a cascade of bad decisions.

When he felt like he could take no more, he pulled away from Ultear. She backed up and lifted herself onto the bed. Angel and their almost disaster were in the back of his mind as he took out a condom and put it on. It took a few tries to get it right; none of his muscles were responding as they should. Finally, he was ready but Ultear held him back.

"What is it?"

She shook her hair back and tipped her face up so she was looking at him face-on. "Tell me you love me."

Zeref got quiet.

"Say it," Ultear pleaded.

"I can't."

She made fists, catching the blankets. "Why?"

"You want me to mean it."

Her eyes fluttered closed. "I want to hear it worse."

He used to think she was better than Angel, more grounded, the girl that wouldn't put a partially loaded gun to her head and pull the trigger. Now he saw, she just didn't have the right kind of weapon.

Zeref said the words. It was like wrenching out a splinter and afterward, there was relief. "I love you."

The second time was easier. The second time, he thought it could have even been true. "I love—"

She kissed him, blocking the rest of his words.

* * *

Zeref was mostly unconscious when he felt Ultear crawl over him. He heard the rustling of paper and knew she had his confession. She settled back beside him. He opened his eyes to watch her skim over the contents. The emotion drained out of her as she got to the end.

Zeref expected her to crawl out of bed, dress, and leave. Instead, she reached behind herself for the lighter he usually kept on his nightstand.

She held up the paper to the flickering flame Sensing his watching her, she made sure to hold his eyes as she touched the lighter to the letter, burning up everything he'd done.

As the ashes and cindering paper fell to the sheets, leaving scorch marks, Zeref said, "I don't need a letter to tell the truth."

"You won't have as much conviction without it," she whispered back.

He realized then that she understood what the letter had said, but she didn't believe it happened in the way he claimed. Perhaps the thought of lying in bed with a monster, being in love with him, was too much to bear.

* * *

ONE MORE CHAPTER.


	15. Chapter 15

The dark is a tidal wave inside of me

* * *

The smell of frying dough pulled Zeref from a heavy sleep. He was pinned. Ultear's head was pillowed on his shoulder, her leg thrown over his and her hand splayed out across his chest. When he looked down at the crown of her head, memories of last night assaulted him. _I love you_. He tried to feel what he felt when he said it but couldn't. It could have been the daylight or the alcohol leaving his system. It could have been that he never felt that way at all. It was hard to say sometimes, what was real and what was him fooling himself, he'd gotten so good.

Zeref tried to slide his arm around Ultear's head without waking her but that was a lost cause. Ultear's eyes came open. She lay there for a few seconds, looking at her surroundings, orienting herself, then she tipped her face up and smiled at him. She looked entirely too pleased with herself. She didn't believe him when he said _I love you, _but she didn't need to. She just wanted to hear it, just like she said.

Sometimes, things were that simple.

"Morning."

"Hi," Zeref croaked. His throat was so dry. "I have to get up."

Ultear untangled herself and allowed Zeref to rise. His ankle screamed at him when he put weight on it, hurting so badly, he thought he was going to be sick. He breathed through the pain and located a pair of boxers, clean but not put away, and a pair of jeans.

The stench of frying pancakes hit him full on when Zeref hobbled to the door and opened it. Natsu peeked out around the wall of the kitchen. His hair was damp and pushed back from his forehead. There was a spatula in his hand.

He looked Zeref over head to foot but had the decency not to say anything to him as he limped into the bathroom and closed himself inside.

Zeref cranked on the hot water, drank as much as he possibly could while standing under the spray. Every time he moved, something else hurt. His skin was tight, his ankle, his head. When he was finished and dried himself, he saw his ankle was purple and swollen so badly, he couldn't even see the bones. And when Zeref looked at himself in the mirror, he saw he had bruising down his neck and across his chest, left, likely, by Ultear's mouth.

_I love you_. He felt foolish now. Why did he give her what she wanted? And what did that mean for the future? Ultear wanted him. Exclusively. He _knew _that. She wouldn't be satisfied until she bullied him into feeling the same way.

"Fucking idiot," he scolded his reflection. "You know better." The man staring back took the abuse stoically.

Zeref opened the door and came back into the living room. Natsu was still leaning against the door jam, still holding the spatula.

"Is she gone?" Zeref rasped. He was still so thirsty but if he drunk anymore, he knew he'd be sick.

Natsu nodded. "Yeah."

Thank god. Zeref started the long shuffle back toward his room. Maybe if he lied down and died, he wouldn't feel so awful.

Natsu's voice chased him. "Did you tell her?"

_I love you_. Natsu couldn't possibly know about that. Unless Ultear opened her big mouth. He faced his brother. Natsu looked very, very serious. _Too _serious. "About what?"

"The quarry."

The violence of Wally's death hit Zeref like a metric ton of bad, just pinned him there. He was back to that early spring day, feeling the blood and viscera and smelling the tang of bleach, feeling the shovel catching dirt, the blisters open on his palms.

"Zeref?"

He pulled himself from it. "No. Why the fuck would I do that?"

Natsu lifted his shoulder, looking ashamed and wanting to redact his words. He reached into the kitchen to prod his pancakes. They were starting to burn. By the time he returned to his position, he had clearly moved past the quarry. "Is Cana still good to go?"

"What?"

"Remember? I asked if she could work at the shop?"

Oh. He dug through his fuzzy memory. They talked about that. He couldn't remember when. He was sure he asked, though. "Right. That's right. Yeah. August said the job's hers if she wants it."

Natsu said, "In the legit shop, right?"

There was only _one _shop, but they did do legitimate business, sometimes. "Sure, Natsu."

"So, I can tell her it's hers?"

"Anything you want."

Natsu grinned toothily for the first time since Halloween. Zeref felt like he accomplished something. He closed himself in his room and turned off the light, laying back in bed. He wasn't as tired as he should have been, though.

He texted August to make sure Cana was good, like he said. August said that was fine, to send her over, they were always looking for skilled people who knew how to keep her mouth shut. He hoped it was true; Cana could find herself like Wally if she didn't.

Afterward, he swung in and out of consciousness, waking whenever Natsu would drop something or laughter on the TV would come too loud. He gave up on sleeping at five and smoked a bowl. That helped his aching foot.

When he finally came out of his room, it was dark. The living room was illuminated only by the broken lamp their grandfather had passed on, and Natsu was sitting on the couch, watching TV. He had made pasta covered in cheese and sprinkled with bacon. He handed a bowl to Zeref, whose guts immediately clenched.

"I'll die if I eat that."

"You'll feel better afterward," Natsu promised. "Just do it."

Zeref sighed and took the bowl. He was iffy at first, but it went down smoother than he expected, and he did feel better.

An old episode of The Simpsons was running on TV. Zeref watched it with waning interest until he realized it was a Christmas episode. He knew all the words because when they were young, his mother would always put it on while she did the tree.

Zeref checked his phone. Somehow, it was December 1st.

"Maybe we can call her…" Natsu trailed off with a furtive look in Zeref's direction. "She might want us to come over."

"I thought we could do our own tree this year." Zeref lied. The last time Natsu went to their parents, it ruined their lives.

No need, I have a tree for us,"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." The lie grew. "I saw the perfect one. Just gotta go get it."

Natsu smiled tentatively. "Sure."

"Give me thirty minutes. You get the decorations out of the closet." His mother had given him a box of them after Zeref moved out, offloading the shit she didn't want so she didn't have to feel bad about sending it to the dump. It was getting repurposed, after all.

He left the rest of his pasta uneaten and got dressed. Natsu was shoulders-deep in the closet when Zeref managed to get his foot in his boot and got out of there.

* * *

Grocery store trees and the kind you found at the little pop-up shops around town were expensive. Zeref entertained stealing one because he didn't want to spend the money but as he was slinking in the shadows, working out the logistics, the door at the back of the grocery store opened and an employee staggered out with a fake tree sparse and ragged and missing its top.

Zeref watched the guy lob it into the dumpster and waited for him to return to the store before he went through the process of dragging it out and chucking it into the bed of the Dakota.

By the time he returned to the apartment, it was pushing seven and music drifted out of its walls. The last thing he wanted was another party. What he wanted less was a scene. He acted like everything was normal as he dragged the tree in. Natsu helped him as he came through the door and beneath the watchful eyes of the people that claimed to be their friends, they set up the tree, separate from everyone else, draping the scraggly branches with peanut strings and marshmallows and an ornament Natsu made their mother when he was young.

Zeref didn't tell him came out of her throwaway box.

Natsu took a picture and texted it to their mother and she called him immediately after, playing the same old bullshit she always did. _I miss you; I love you; you should come home; you belong here. The holidays are hard without you. _

_You. _Not, _without you and your brother._ Zeref was too much trouble for them, only good when he was giving them money. Zeref wanted to grab the phone from Natsu and scream into it. He sometimes thought his mother was the reason his head was such a mess.

When Natsu finally got off the phone with her, he gave Zeref some excuse about having to go to Gildarts'. Zeref let him go. The party went on. Someone put on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Zeref felt like Raoul Duke, high on everything, teetering, unstable. It was so on-point, he closed his eyes for most of it.

Natsu surprised Zeref by returning home. He watched the movie for a few moments but like Zeref, couldn't seem to stomach it. He went to bed. Zeref stayed out until the movie was over then kicked everyone out of the apartment. He locked the door afterward and shut out the light. Their Christmas tree hulked in the corner, as tall and thick as a man, the half-burned out lights guiding Zeref to his room and into bed.

* * *

It was early when he woke; the sun wasn't even over the horizon. He lay in before a moment, trying to figure out what pulled him from his comatose state. Then he heard Natsu talking, asking, "Is she breathing?"

Pause.

"I'm coming over." Natsu's voice shook a little with tension. "Keep your eye on her."

From there, it was a toss-up of which damsel in Natsu's life needed him. Lucy, who seemed to seek out dangerous things just to get his attention, Cana, who was almost as self-destructive as both Dragneel brothers combined, Ultear, who had a penchant for terrible situations, or someone that couldn't fit into the frame Zeref conjured.

Abruptly awake, Zeref pulled himself out of bed and hobbled to the door. Natsu was out of his room, pulling his clothes on. Zeref felt a deep panic he couldn't explain.

"Where are you going?"

Natsu barely looked at him. "Cana's in trouble."

Of course, it was Cana that was in trouble. But that wasn't an answer. "So where are you going?"

"She's at Lucy's."

The trouble suddenly looked a whole lot deeper when you added Lucy to the equation.

Natsu grabbed his boots and jammed his feet into them, like if he moved fast enough, Zeref wouldn't stop him. He was wrong.

"You can't go there."

"I have to." Natsu grabbed a sweater off one of the coat hooks. Zeref thought it could have been his; Natsu wasn't paying much attention; he was a steamroller, single-minded, carried on momentum.

"Natsu!" Zeref snapped, trying to get him to focus, to appreciate what he was saying.

"I'm not going for long; I'm just going to pick her up and take her home." Natsu searched Zeref's coat for the Dakota keys and put them in his pocket.

Zeref limped halfway into the living room. "Let someone else do it."

"She doesn't have anyone else."

Natsu could be as stubborn as a bull. He wasn't going to be moved from this path, Zeref realized, not even for the threat of Jude Heartfilia burying him in a jail cell for as long as humanly possible.

_That would be the nicest thing he'd do, _Zeref thought. If Heartfilia had his way, Natsu would trip his way into an early grave. "Just hang on then." Like maybe Natsu stood a chance if Jude was home if Zeref was with him.

Zeref hobbled back to his room and hopped into a pair of sweats. He was pulling a T-shirt over his head when he heard the front door slam. Zeref yanked open his door. The living room was empty, Natsu was gone.

"Fuck _off_." Zeref chased him outside, braving the snow in his bare feet, but by the time he managed it, the Dakota's taillights were at the stop sign and then the truck was spinning around the corner.

"You _idiot_, you fucking _idiot,_" Zeref yelled after him. Curtains pushed aside and people gazed out at him as if he was crazed. Zeref took the time to flip them off. Then he called Natsu's phone and called and called. And when that didn't work, he texted him, telling him to get home _now_. There was no peace with Jude Heartfilia, not even when retrieving a downed soldier, there was only war.

_Fuck. _

Zeref hobbled back inside and slammed the door so hard, the painting he used to cover the hole on the wall fell. The glass fractured but didn't break completely. Zeref picked it back up and hung it on the wall. Then he just stood there, unsure of what to do.

He called Natsu again. Voicemail, again. When the fuck did his brother get so reckless?

"It's fine," Zeref said to himself. "He'll be fine." He was just picking up his friend and then coming home.

Things were never quite that simple when Lucy was involved.

Zeref made himself coffee and sat at the kitchen table, watching his phone, willing it to ring. The sun crested the horizon. Zeref made himself another coffee, and one after that. His heart was throbbing by the time he was done, threatening to explode with so much caffeine in his system.

He was terrible at waiting. He had no control here, and he didn't like that at all.

Lucy wasn't hard to find on Instagram. Zeref hunted for her fuckboy, Loke, who had a million and one pictures of himself, and two of him with Lucy. He scrolled through the likes until he came across the handle _starcrozzed_. When he clicked on it, he was assaulted by pictures of Lucy in a bikini, Lucy in short shorts, Lucy in a dress, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. All the pictures were provocatively, but the way she looked at the camera made it clear she wouldn't be answering the DMs of strangers. It didn't leave him with much hope that she'd answer him, either, but he tried, sending her,

_Is Natsu still there?_

The DM showed read. Zeref tapped his fingers impatiently against the tabletop. Then … appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Finally, her answer came through.

_He left with Cana._

_Is he okay?_

_I guess. He just wanted to leave._

Her despondence managed to come through her messages. Zeref disregarded them. He didn't care about how she felt. In fact, he didn't even consider it.

Someone hammered on his door. Zeref's stomach dropped to his still-frozen feet. He glanced beyond the black bedsheets he used for drapes and saw the white and black of a cruiser. One officer was getting out of the passenger's side and the other was already on Zeref's front step.

"Because of the lease, or Wally?" he asked himself aloud. "Natsu?"

He would have ignored the door but the cop that lagged made eye contact with Zeref and he knew it was much too late for that.

He looked around his apartment once. There were no pills on the table, no weed hanging around. There was a charred pipe he stuffed under his couch cushion. He wished he had time to burn some incense, too. How bad did it smell like dope?

He looked one last time at where Wally expired, wishing he had time to scrub it down, before he opened the door. His palm was sweaty enough it slipped on the knob.

A blast of cold air hit Zeref, chilling him. He squinted against the new light at the two officers. One wore a badge that said _Fullbuster _and the other was _Erringway_. Zeref recognized the first, Silver Fullbuster, Gildarts' partner, but not the second.

"Where's Gildarts?" Zeref asked first.

"Family business," Fullbuster said, which was peculiar because Gildarts didn't really have a family. "Can we come in?"

"Why?" Zeref asked warily.

"We just have a few questions."

You were supposed to move for cops but Zeref didn't. His stomach was flipping madly, all that coffee curdling.

_You're calm. You're good. You don't sweat._

That was all wrong. He swung wildly between feeling nothing and feeling everything. He knew that.

_Then strive to feel nothing._

Zeref made his features flat. "Regarding?"

"It's the kind of conversation we should have indoors," Fullbuster said. His jaw was a hard, straight line, as thick as a brick. "It'll only take a few minutes."

What else was there to do? Zeref stepped back and invited him and Erringway inside. They gathered around his kitchen table, notepads out, cellphones out, pens out.

Silver leaned back in his seat. The chair squeaked beneath his weight. He looked around at the ceiling, stained by smoke, the kitchen, stained by grease, the living room, still barraged by movie posters and holding his shredded couch. "I didn't know the zoning on this place got changed."

"It's a big city," Zeref responded. "I imagine a lot of stuff flies under the radar."

"Mmhm."

Silver said no more. Zeref prodded him, "Is that why you're here? To talk about my apartment?" Could he be so fucking _lucky_?

Silver's eyes flashed, then his face got flat and Zeref knew that wasn't actually the case. "Do you follow the news at all, Zeref?"

"Sure."

"Then you've heard about Wally Buchannan."

He'd known he was going to hear Wally's name, but it was still like a lightning bolt went through him. He had to fight _hard _to keep from showing his discomfort. "Who?"

Silver was still sitting back in his seat casually, flipping his pen over his knuckles. "The body the police found a few weeks ago. He was identified as Wally Buchannan. A low-level thug best we can tell. No on-the-record job or mortgage or car loan. No paper trails, catch me?"

"Okay."

Silver reached into his coat and took out a folded piece of paper, a photo, and laid it out on the table.

Seeing Wally with clear eyes and a head on his shoulders was unsettling. He stared at the camera blankly for a mug shot, no sunglasses, scraggly scruff on his chin.

Silver watched Zeref carefully. "You never knew him?"

Zeref shrugged. "Don't think so."

Silver scribbled some stuff on his notepad. His substitute partner watched Zeref intently like he was a walnut he was trying to crack open with his eyes.

"Do you remember where you were the night of April 22?"

Zeref raised his eyebrows. "That was eight months ago."

Silver only stared at him.

Zeref sighed and picked up his phone, making a show of going through his photos, looking at the dates. He pulled one up from the day in question and showed it to Silver. "I was taking pictures around the city." Like, two. Of a derelict factory that caught his eye.

"Around ten PM?"

"I don't know. I was probably at home, watching the game." He'd never in his life watched a hockey game, but guys like Silver Fullbuster did, and the best way to ease his suspicion was to speak a language he understood.

There was a little knot between Silver's eyebrows that didn't lessen. "Hockey ended April 2nd."

"Oh." Sometimes, these things backfired, and when they did, it was a spectacular fuckery. "I don't know then. A movie or something?"

Silver scribbled some other things. "What about your brother?"

"What about him?"

"He lives here with you, isn't that right?"

"Sure."

"For how long?"

"A few years."

_Scribble, scribble. _"Where was he that night?"

It was maddening that Silver barely even bothered to look at Zeref when he spoke as if this was a formality and he already had a clear picture of what happened.

"Natsu was at our parents' house."

"They'll vouch for that?"

"Of course." He would make sure of it. "What is this about?"

Finally, Silver put his pen down and looked at Zeref. "We had an anonymous tip that a truck was seen at the quarry where Wally's body was found."

"I heard."

"We were sent this picture this morning." He pulled up the album on his phone and showed Zeref the picture in question. It was different than the one that'd been sent to him, the angle and the clarity, but that was his truck, his license plate. In the image was a billboard that said _Monster Mania, May 4th._

"That billboard was leased on Old Mill Road. Which is where the quarry is located."

"Yeah," Zeref said again.

"Do you have anything you want to come forward with at this time?" Silver prodded.

"Not really, no."

"Your truck was spotted near the quarry where Wally was found, two men, one matching your description were reported digging a hole for a body, there is a picture of your truck driving toward the quarry where Wally was found," Silver said.

"You say that like it's damning but there are lots of roads in Magnolia and all of them are legal to drive down," said Zeref. "I have nothing to say about it."

It was clear Silver thought he was lying. "One of your neighbours thought they might have seen you shove something like a body in the back of your truck that night."

"I loaded a shrub for Natsu to take to my mom," Zeref lied smoothly. "Maybe that was it?"

"A shrub?"

"She likes to garden. It was a peace offering. We aren't on the best terms."

_Tap, tap, tap _went his fingers. "Do you mind if we look at your truck?"

"It's not here. My brother has it."

"And where is Natsu?"

Good fucking question. "With one of his friends. I'll bring the truck to the station for you as soon as he gets home, though, if that'll help?"

"Please do." Silver stood. "Thank you, Zeref. The sooner we can put this to rest, the better."

Indeed.

Zeref showed them out.

* * *

An hour later, Zeref heard the apartment door open. He came into the living room to see Natsu discarding his sweater and draping it back on the hook. His brother looked bone-deep tired.

He saw Zeref and held up his hands like he was warding off an attack. "I'm fine."

If you exclude his being struck with a case of flaming idiot. "You should have listened to me."

Natsu waved him off like he was exaggerating. He didn't know about the pictures and the police. The threats. "No one was even there. I brought Cana home and that was that. But I've got a crazy story for you. You're not going to believe it. Gildarts is her dad and—"

"Natsu," Zeref cut in. Natsu quieted.

"What?"

"The police were here."

The colour drained out of Natsu's face. "Why?"

"They wanted to ask some questions. They said someone gave them an anonymous tip; they said they saw us putting something body-like in the Dakota around the time that guy went missing."

Natsu blinked rapidly. Zeref could practically see his thoughts scattering and Natsu frantically trying to gather them together. Then an unnatural calm descended over his brother and eventually, he said, "Is that all?"

_All? _"Isn't that enough?"

Natsu shrugged. "That's a loose thread."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But it's a fucking thread."

"They can't prove anything."

"Not yet."

"Not ever. They don't have anything."

Pictures. Who knew what others were taken? Was the man that was dumping garbage that night not _actually _a crooked contractor trying to cut down on dumping costs? Was he one of Heartfilia's goons, getting close, confirming they were dropping Wally's body? He felt like such an idiot for not checking.

"They're looking," was as close as Zeref could come to voicing his fears.

"Should we leave town?" Natsu asked.

"If we split, they'll think we're guilty."

Natsu's panic slipped through a crack in his calm. "We _are_ guilty."

"_I'm_ guilty," Zeref said. _Me. __He would make sure the police knew that. Which meant Natsu had to stay the fuck out of trouble for just a few hours. __"_If we want to keep up appearances, we have to stay and act like nothing's different."

Natsu asked, "What if they come back?"

They would, of course, if Zeref didn't take them the truck. "I'll take care of it."

"How?" Natsu asked suspiciously.

He needed to start with a really good story that would exonerate Natsu.

Zeref pushed his hair back from his forehead with both hands. "Just leave it for now. If anyone comes to talk to you, tell them you stayed the night with Mom and Dad, you _didn't_ come home. Mom will cover for you. Dad probably doesn't even remember."

Natsu asked, "What about you?"

"I'll figure it out."

"How?"

Natsu would never go for the crazy schemes in Zeref's head. Best to play his hand tight to his chest. "I just will." Then he changed the subject. "Did you eat?"

Natsu struggled to keep up. "No."

"There's cinnamon toast."

Natsu looked sick just thinking about it. "No, thanks."

"What are you doing then?" He needed his brother distracted. Not thinking about Lucy, not trying to fix this in his own way.

"Going back to bed," Natsu decided. He looked like he could use a few more hours of sleep. If he could catch them with everything going on, then all the power to him.

He started toward his room. Zeref stopped him; he didn't think he'd get another chance to ask, "Did you look at any more of those applications Gildarts gave you?"

Natsu threw his weight against his door jam. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No."

His calm exterior broke wide open. "We're talking about _alibis_, Zeref, for the body we buried together, and you're wondering if I'm applying to Police Foundations?"

Zeref said, "There were other packages." Gildarts was a lofty fool if he thought police work would tempt his crime-committing brother down a righteous road. "You like helping people so much. There were EMS and social worker and—"

Natsu rolled his eyes and tried to disappear into his room.

"Natsu." Zeref barked, effectively stopping his brother in his tracks. "You promised me you'd apply." His memories from Fairy Tail were fuzzy but he remembered that much.

Natsu's eyes pinched. "That was just something I said to get you in the truck."

"A promise is a promise."

That got Natsu better than any threat might. He sighed hugely. "If we don't both end up in jail, I'll look at them."

"Good."

Natsu closed himself in his room. Zeref heard him pull the drapes closed and flop onto his squeaking mattress. He stood there for a long time, imagining the peace that came with sleep and hoped his brother was able to fall into it. He was jealous; he felt like he hadn't slept decently in years.

He cleaned the apartment again to make sure there was absolutely no evidence there that might tie Natsu to the crime, then he took the truck and drove it to the Magnolia Police station the way a robot might drive, hands tight on the wheel, eyes watching the streets go by, thoughts carefully blank.

When he was in the parking lot, he called his mother. She didn't answer at first. He had to redial. As it was ringing, he wondered if she'd ignore him and his plan would fall apart at the seams.

"Hello?"

Zeref blinked himself into the present. "Mom?"

"Hi, baby." The words were there but none of the warmth.

"How are you?"

She was stunned into momentary silence. He never asked about her. "I'm okay. Christmas shopping. How are you?"

Always a complicated answer. Mostly, he was fine, because he was always fine, eventually. _This time is different, _he told himself. He _was _going to take responsibility for his actions. "I'm at the police station."

"Oh, Zeref." Her voice fractured and he was bombarded with her heavy emotions. Disappointment. Fear. Resignation. Did everyone know it would come to this, eventually? "What did you do?"

"It's ah…" he trailed off. "It's bad," he finished limply. "I don't need anything, really. That's not why I called."

"Zeref—"

"Just _listen," _he cut in. He couldn't sit through another lecture about being a good person. He wasn't. He never would be. He accepted it; she needed to, too. "The police are going to ask Natsu where he was, and I need you to say he was with you all night."

"All _what _night?" she demanded.

"April 22nd."

The date rang a note with her; she got quiet. "Zeref…"

"Just tell them he spent the night. He didn't leave until the next day."

"He _wasn't_ here, though. He left."

"I _know _that, Mom. But if you don't say it, he's going to get arrested, too, and he didn't do this."

She burst out in tears. "Oh, _God."_

"Mom, focus."

"You hurt someone. You—oh, god. That man on the news. Oh—"

This was degrading faster than he planned. "Promise me you'll cover for Natsu."

"_Zeref_—"

"Just fucking promise me."

Her breaths were noisy in the receiver. She sniffled. He could picture her pinching her nose, a piece of tissue beneath it just like she did when her husband burned through another pay cheque. She gathered in a deep breath, held it. Released it again. "Natsu didn't do anything?"

"You _know _he didn't." Natsu was _good. _A few fights here and there but nothing serious. He was always the golden boy. His mother's favourite. Zeref used to be jealous of that; now he was relieved.

She took in another noisy breath. Someone asked if she was okay. She didn't answer them. "Alright. Alright, I'll lie."

"And Dad?"

"I'll make sure he doesn't mess it up."

Zeref dropped his head against the headrest, tension just bleeding out of him. "Thank you."

He was speaking to blank air. His mother hung up. That stung more than he thought it should, for someone who, according to his psychiatrist, didn't feel anything the way he was supposed to.

Zeref turned off his truck and got out. He was nervous staring up at the big brown building and its many windows. It was designed to intimidate people and it did its job well. Zeref rehearsed what he was going to say three times and smoked two cigarettes and still, he couldn't make his feet take him through the front doors.

He pulled out his phone and brought up his text messages. The ones he sent to Natsu were sparse and usually fraught with desperation.

_This is the life you made, _Zeref thought.

_It doesn't have to be his, though._

He typed out, _t_here's money in my room. In the piggy bank__. Which is what he affectionally called Duma Key.

There was a great gap where he hovered over the send button without pushing it because if he did this, it made it real.

_Just do it, _he encouraged himself. _Every time you turn around, you're fucking something up. _Hiding his medication, destroying any chance he had at a normal, functioning relationship, taking the people Natsu cared about and ruining them, encouraging his mental illness to present as mysticism. _This way is going to be better for everyone._

"It took so long, I thought you didn't understand what I meant, Halloween night."

Zeref waited until Jellal was beside him before responding. "Guess I was just hoping there was another way."

Jellal leaned against Zeref's truck. "Someone has to go down for it."

"Are you here making sure it's me?" He could use a little bit of encouragement.

"Don't flatter yourself. I dropped Lucy off so she could take in all the evidence she's collected against my uncle and saw you here, sweating bullets."

Zeref cut a look his way. "You dropped Lucy off? To accuse her father of crimes?" Hearing it aloud didn't make it any easier to comprehend. "Why?"

Jellal settled his weight against the Dakota's side panel. "Lucy's father is an asshole and she deserves to be happy."

And crazily enough, Zeref _believed _him.

"Once this is done, you'll leave them alone, right? Her and Natsu?"

"I won't try to put your brother in a pine box," Jellal confirmed. "I imagine there won't be much _alone _time, though. If you go through with this and Natsu still wants Lucy, he'll be part of the family. We'll be in each other's lives. No way around it."

"He's a good kid," Zeref said. "He doesn't deserve trouble."

"If he's part of the family, he'll have the same protection we all do."

"Your cousin's in there selling her father out," Zeref reminded him. "Not too sure that's reassuring."

Jellal lifted his shoulder. "It's the nature of the beast. I'm sure Lucy won't have those kinds of qualms about your brother, though."

Zeref lit another cigarette. His tongue was going numb. He smoked half of it in the kind of companionable silence he didn't think he and Jellal would ever share.

"I still have your money," Zeref said.

"It's still yours."

"If I give it to Natsu, nothing bad is going to happen, right?"

Jellal cut his hand through the air. "No strings attached."

"Even if he takes it and him and Lucy fuck off together?"

"All the power to them."

Zeref pressed _send _on his text.

Natsu answered immediately. _So what?_

_It's yours, __Zeref typed back._

There was a long gap between Natsu's next texts. Finally, he said, _w_hy would it be mine? __And, immediately after, _how much money?_

Long, complicated answers only. Zeref said, _Stay out of trouble __and turned off his phone._ _"He's a good kid," he said again. "Just needs some guidance."_

"If he's part of the family, he's family," Jellal reiterated. "We take care of each other."

That was a relief in a way. Zeref nodded and walked into the police station.

* * *

DOOOONE

This has been a nightmare for me. I loved it and hated it simultaneously, as with every nightmare I've ever had. It's super easy to write when you're following a pre-determined storyline. And HELLISH. I'm not a big rule person and trying to follow continuity between a FIVE PART SERIES that started out as a fuck diary is… something. Where did I go wrong? How did this monster get so damn far away from me? Why couldn't I let it lie? It's special.

I am doing one more story on FF. (Like, I'm finishing Gold Hour and then I'm writing one more as a reward for a pat reon, a most loyal reader. You're the best, lovely angelus999.) Sooo you're not rid of me yet. God. I KNOW. I think I finally have this Heartbreak fuckery out of my system, though. Yay me.

Love you all lots and lots and lots.


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